Saving Severus
by Aurinko
Summary: Hell is not only a specific place but a moral and an anagogical allegory of the guilty conscience of the damned. It is the projection into a physical reality of the inner state of the damned...' The redemption of Severus Snape & Albus Dumbledore. AU.
1. The White Room

_﻿ **Saving Severus**_

_by Aurinko _

_

* * *

_

Summary: After the last battle, Severus Snape is renowned as a hero, but the man at St. Mungo's has no concept of fame—no concept of anything. Severus's mind has been destroyed in Voldemort's last act of revenge on the traitor who brought about his downfall. Albus Dumbledore seizes the opportunity to save the young man he sees as his son, even if his wife isn't very happy about his decision. This time, however, it isn't the Dark Lord or even the Ministry he must fight--it's Severus himself.

_"Thus Hell is not only a specific place but a moral and an anagogical allegory of the guilty conscience of the damned. It is the projection into a physical reality of the inner state of the damned...Hell exists from within." _

_(from the introduction to John Cidari's 1954 tranlsation of Dante's _The Inferno_, page xiv)_

Rating: M

Category: Angst/Drama

* * *

_Chapter One: The White Room_

Albus Dumbledore moved through the halls of St. Mungo's slowly, mindlessly following his feet. He had long ago memorized the path he now followed and could trace its steps by heart. He was mildly surprised to see the cleaning cart in the hallway;his dreams did not bother with such mundane necessities. 

The receptionist at the desk nodded congenially at him as he passed, not quite able to disguise the pity in her limpid brown eyes. Albus ignored her completely, drawing an indignant huff as he strode past, eyes straight ahead. He no longer cared. He was used to the pity and the confusion, the insensitive, inane questions from people who simply _did not understand_.

He paused just before yet another plain, unmarked door—a janitor's closet, for all the outside world knew. It was, Albus thought with a pang, exactly how Severus would have wanted it.

Swallowing, Albus pushed open the door and closed it firmly behind him, refusing to move until it clicked shut. Closing his eyes briefly in a private moment of weakness, he took a deep breath. Plastering a pleasant smile on his face, Albus stepped forward, pulled back the single metal chair in the room, and sat down.

"Good morning, Severus," he said cheerfully. "How was your night?"

The figure on the bed gave no reply, though his dark eyes remained wide open.

Albus, however, paused for a moment as if listening for an answer. "Yes, I'm sure your night was much better than mine," he said sadly. "Minerva's worried about me." He paused again and then laughed a little. "Yes, more so than usual. She doesn't worry all the time." Albus smiled wryly. "Well, not as intensely all the time. This is worse than when you're late coming home because usually I'm around to distract her, but this time I'm the one causing the distraction."

Another short silence fell in the white room. "Yes, you're probably right. She can't rationalize the situation, and although you've often returned late from your…meetings safely, you've never…" Albus's blue eyes darkened suddenly, his hand tightening over Severus's limp one and he choked. "You've never been trapped in your own mind and come back before, Severus."

There was a short, tense silence in the room as Albus Dumbledore struggled with something far greater than himself.

Then, in the solemn silence that followed, he admitted the truth to both himself and the man he considered his son.

"No one has."

* * *

A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated! 


	2. Stealing My Son

_Chapter Two: Stealing My Son_

Minerva realized what had happened before she had even finished reading the article.

_Severus Salazar Snape, greatest spy of the Second War, disappeared yesterday from his room on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries around __4 PM__. Mr. Snape, once the potions professor at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, was struck by an unknown curse from You-Know-Who during the Last __Battle__ while defending Harry Potter… _

She skimmed over the extolments of Severus's bravery; she had no desire to read the belated praise. Still, she cut out the little article and placed it in a box she summoned from her shelves. Severus, if—no, _when_—he came home, would want to read them, laugh bitterly, and then keep the clippings all the same. Until he could do so himself, she would do it for him.

Minerva rose, folded the paper neatly on her desk, and headed straight to the Headmaster's office. Albus had some explaining to do.

By the time she reached the stone gargoyle, Minerva had begun to wonder. What if her initial insight was wrong? What if Severus had been kidnapped? He was so vulnerable in the state he was in… She rode up the staircase in an increasing state of panic that she failed to suppress. When she reached the doorway, she simply shoved it open—and gasped at the scene before her.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You guys are great! I promise, the chapters will get longer. These first three probably could've been thrown together, but I don't like the scene-switching thing much. Sorry. Next bit, Albus has some explaining to do and makes his first attempt at saving Severus. 


	3. The Promise

_Chapter Three: The Promise_

"Albus! What on earth are you doing?"

_Minerva_. He sighed. "Trying to save Severus."

"With _that_?" The Headmaster glanced around his office and tried to envision it as she would. Severus was asleep in his white hospital bed in the center of the room; all the furniture had been cleared away. The contraptions he had set up to assist with the spell constituted a sophisticated and highly complex experimental apparatus—but Minerva likely saw it as little more than a convoluted jumble of silver and glass. It was the first time she had seen his "office toys" in use for anything but play, and from the look on her face, she was quite unnerved by his intended use of them. "Albus…what are you doing?" she asked again, the marked gravity and concern in her voice unmistakable.

His face tightened. "Saving Severus," he said determinedly.

Minerva paused. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked quietly.

Albus hesitated and looked away. "I didn't think that you wanted to hear," he replied, his voice equally soft. He looked up at her, pained and instantly apologetic, but his words had struck home and he winced as Minerva flinched visibly.

It had been hard for her, very hard, to hear about their numerous failures to bring Severus back. When she could no longer bear to ask the doctors herself, Albus brought her news of the latest developments—or lack thereof—in Severus's progress. Eventually, exhausted and unwilling to see the same look of shattered hope on Minerva's face again, Albus had ceased to inform her of their latest attempts unless real progress had been made. She could live with the knowledge that they were trying. She did not need to know how often they had failed. In the still silence of the room, Albus swore that _this _time, things would be different.

"_Tell me_."

* * *

A/N: Much thanks again to everyone who reviewed--I'm sorry that even these _really _short chapters have been taking so long to get out. 

Reviews (and reviewers) are adored! ;-)


	4. The Hope

_Chapter Four: The Hope_

A/N: Many thanks to Silverthreads, foci, Lady-jolly, hotcocoalatte, Jedi Knight Padme, kidarock, and Alesia G for their reviews. I'm glad that some people are enjoying this story and will carry on with it. I'm sorry I'm not writing more faster.

* * *

"Albus, _tell me,_" Minerva demanded, her voice low and insistent. She crossed her arms unconsciously, raised her chin, and arrested him with a stare that had compelled fifth-years to confess to misdemeanours that they had committed as second-years. 

He paused in his work, took one look at her face, and gave a long-suffering sigh.

"_Now, _Albus."

Her green-eyed glare was met and matched by steely blue eyes. "We've tried everything," he replied in a low voice. "_Everything, _Minerva." Her features softened in shared pain. "Nothing gets through the shields he's put up around himself. Severus is the only one who can bring them down, but after this long, we can only assume that he is either unable or…unwilling to do so."

"The mediwizards did everything they could within the limits of the law. Physically, Severus is in perfect health. Mentally…" Albus sighed heavily. "Mentally, we can't get so much as a flicker out of him. His shielding is absolute," he said, a hint of pride mixing with the sorrow in his voice.

"And this?" Minerva asked, her voice rising only slightly as her gesture encompassed the scene.

Albus paused. "Severus cannot escape unaided. I'm going to help him."

Minerva swallowed. "This spell…how dangerous is it?"

"The spell will link our minds, bypassing his shielding and sending me—my consciousness—to wherever Severus has hidden himself away. All I have to do is find him." There was no doubt in either of their minds that the task would be a thousand times more difficult than Albus's words implied.

Minerva did not miss his evasion of her question. She rarely did. "How dangerous is this spell, Albus?"

He looked down at her grimly. "The longer I stay there, the more dangerous it gets. If I'm there longer than…four hours, pull me out. A strong _finite _ought to do it. I do believe that this will work, however."

"Albus…" she began hesitantly.

He raised a hand. "I have to try," he said simply.

She shook a little, in anger and in fear. "You should have told me."

"Yes," he agreed. Her eyes narrowed. "Minerva, please," he asked softly. "Help me help him."

Minerva closed her eyes and shuddered once, twice, and then stilled. He watched as she straightened, then stared straight at him. "I will wait for your return," she said clearly.

Albus never attempted to read her thoughts without her permission, but sometimes they spilled over. Legilimency or not, her thoughts were evident. _You had better come back, Mister. You've got a lot of groveling to do._

He smiled at her warmly, his smile deepening as her expression softened. "I'll be back soon," he promised, dropping a light kiss on her lips. Then, before either of them could change their minds, he reached out to touch Severus's forehead with his fingertips and whispered the incantation.

He was glad, then, when the darkness closed over him, that he could not see Minerva's stricken expression as his body collapsed lifelessly before her.


	5. Limbo

_Chapter Five: Limbo_

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! Sorry I didn't post this sooner...the style's _very_ different, and while I'm not sure if it's quite _right..._well, let me know what you think.

_Later: _I finally wentdown to the library, picked up a copy of _The Divine Comedy,_realized how _very _loosely I'd taken things, and decided to at least get the names right from now on. Thus, this chapter is now _Limbo _instead of _Purgatory, _although I plan to get there eventually.

* * *

_Gray._

It was gray all around him, in front and behind, in his past and in his present and in his future, as far as he could see. It went on and on, spreading out in every direction, farther and farther and farther and on into forever and part of his mind screamed in horrified incomprehension…

He gasped, choking as that thick, cloying gray filled his lungs and strangled him from the inside. He tried to cough, only to breathe in more of the stuff and flailedmindlessly as the panic began to take over. By the time he began to fall, he was no longer breathing; the gray had invaded his lungs. His struggles weakened as he fell.

He was falling, falling, down and away into nothingness, falling up and sideways and over until he lost all semblance of direction, and knew only that he was falling, falling into gray, _dissolving_ into gray. His legs, his arms, his body--all waslost as he flowed into the gray.

He was nothing and no one, only gray, and he knew that it would not be long before he forgot even the name of the color that surrounded him, suffocated him, strangled him with its pervading ambiguity…

Had there ever been any other color?

What _was_ color? This was everything.

Everything, everywhere, nowhere.

There was nothing to help him and no one to save him, because he _was _it, this nothingness...nothing...he _was _it, and it was him, and then because of it there _was _no him, only…only…

It was his first and last thought before he screamed. And screamed, and _screamed_…

…

…

…

_Albus! _A terrified woman cried in a room far, far away as she cradled an old man's spasm-wracked body to her. His mouth opened in another silent scream, his head jerking back violently, and she screamed with him, their agony made sound, as her tears fell softly around his face. **_ALBUS!_**

…

_**Minerva!**_

And like a bolt of lightning, sanity returned.

_NO!_

He fought.

He was not _that_.

Not…_gray_. He was something else.

He was…he was…

…

_green. green eyes. deep emerald fall into forever. pale face, delicate, strong. wild mass of midnight. green eyes, looking up at him, shining, carrying..._love.

…

The gray shivered violently.

…

_She _was Minerva, _his_ Minerva and he…he was her Albus…and they…

…

_light, and laughter. daisies in sunshine, not roses. chasing, catching, falling together. together, love. always and forever. _Love.

…

The gray screamed, and shattered.

…

They were…searching…_he_ was searching for her for their boy, for…_for Severus!_

_**SEVERUS!**_

There was a blinding flash of light, pure white and no gray, too much white, all white, and then suddenly...

* * *

A/N: Please review! Did this chapter make sense? Should I continue with this fic? 


	6. Above the Styx

_Chapter Six: Above the Styx_

A/N: I'm sorry that this chapter took me so long to post. I'd written it in August but hadn't thought to post it because the next one isn't done yet. I was operating under the delusion that somehow I'd magically have more time in college to write. Now that I've been thoroughly disabused of that notion, I'll just have to steal time to write.

* * *

From the last chapter:

_There was a blinding flash of light, pure white and no gray, too much white, all white, and then suddenly..._

…darkness fell.

Albus shivered, blinked, and looked around in surprise. He was standing knee-deep in a vast, putrid mire. In the distance to both his left and right he could just make out strange dark shores, deeply shrouded in a heavy mist.

He shivered again as the first touch of the reeking wet began to seep through his robes, bringing a clingingcold that penetrated deep into his bones.

Albus took a deep breath, doing his best to ignore the stench, and searched the mists again. "Severus!" he shouted. "SEVERUS!"

A strange sound startled him, and Albus's eyes widened as he realized he was slowly being pulled down into the mud. Once, twice, three times he tried to lift his feet, only to be pulled farther down. He reached down into the mud with a slight grimace, grabbed hold of his left pant leg with both hands and jerked hard. A wrenching pain in his ankle was his only reward.

His heart was racing and his breath shallow by the time he glanced up and noticed that the mist had somehow moved closer towards him. It was a thick gray, nearly opaque, and more than a little foreboding. It edged closer to him, surrounding him on all sides and slowly obscuring the mire beneath it. A heavy tendril of gray snaked out towards his face like an arm; Albus flinched away at the last instant—and the mist struck his shoulder like a whip.

_He leapt to his feet, ignoring the stabbing pain in his back. "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" he shouted furiously._

_Lily blinked, concealing her flash of hurt instantaneously. "Fine," she said coolly. "I won't bother in the future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, _Snivellus._"_

_He winced inwardly as she strode away, her steps quick and angry. Lily always gave just as good as she got. He would apologize to her later, perhaps. She might even forgive him. Her patience with him was limited when it came to his upbringing._

_He enjoyed a brief moment of victory as Potter puzzled over why Lily disliked his arrogant ass. As soon as she entered the castle, however, the Marauders turned on him again. Black hexed him while his back was turned; Potter joined in the fun a moment later. Wandless and outnumbered as always, he could only wait and fume. Let the others laugh at him. One day, they would pay for their crimes. He would show them all. A tight, angry knot in his chest hardened as his vision narrowed to the laughing James Potter. _

One day, Potter, I'll make you pay for this_, he vowed, glaring at his nemesis. _I will be more powerful than you can possibly imagine, and there will be nothing to keep me from destroying you.

_Professor McGonagall's timely arrival "saved" him, but he did not stay to enjoy her tirade; her pity was almost as painful as their mockery. Flushing with a burning combination of abject humiliation and anger as he absconded from the scene, he made a dark promise to his tormentor. _You'll_ pay _for this someday, Potter,_ he swore hatefully._

Albus gasped as the burning hatred in his chest suddenly released him, trembling as the remnants of helplessness and humiliation swirling in his soul dissipated with the mist. He closed his eyes. _Oh, my boy, I'm so very sorry… _Before he had time to gather his wits about him, however, another phantom fist struck out at him.

_He looked down at the boy and scowled. "Harry Potter. Our new—_celebrity." _The green-eyed—cursed eyes!—James Potter stared back defiantly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing him cower. _Gryffindor_, he thought scornfully, and proceeded to question him ruthlessly._

"_Tut, tut—fame clearly isn't everything," he sneered. The brat said nothing, choosing instead to defy his authority once again. Potter's bushy-haired girlfriend continued to wave her hand about as if afflicted by palsy, but he ignored her. He would cease his harassment of the boy as soon as Potter acknowledged his authority._

_The arrogant brat refused. Even his "I don't know, _sir_"_ _lacked the proper respect due to a professor of Hogwarts. _James Potter's son indeed_, he thought with a barely concealed anger. "Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"_

_The boy said nothing. He tried again. "What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"_

"_I don't know," the boy replied quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?" His dark eyes widened momentarily and a few of his Slytherins actually gasped aloud. _Of all the nerve…_ Only a Gryffindor, and an unusually stupid one at that would believe that by diminishing his volume he might somehow mitigate the blatant disrespect of his words. _Or perhaps the brat simply doesn't care, _he thought with disgust_. Like father, like son.

_His old hatred flared with a startling vehemence and only his carefully cultivated self-control kept him from destroying the whelp as he had never gotten the chance to destroy the brat's father. _And Hogwarts gets another great Gryffindor hero…_ "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter," he snarled, and stalked away._

The scene faded slowly, and Albus sighed. It had been unforgivably foolish of him to ask Severus to give Harry Occulmency lessons. He had not known—had not truly _believed_—that Severus hated the boy so much. Harry was not James. After living at Privet Drive for so many years, Harry was so unlike James that Albus had been certain that even Severus would see it. Albus sighed wearily. It had taken a brutal war for them to even _respect _one another.

The mist swirled angrily around him, and Albus suddenly felt as though he was being pelted by a series of small fists.

_"Potter, you can skin Malfoy's shrivelfig," he said, his glare daring the boy to act out._

_Petty, _Albus thought sadly, _but not harmful—and with the added benefit of ensuring a proper report to Tom from young Malfoy._

The mist lashed out again, giving Albus a harder bruising.

_"So," he said, straightening up again. "Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences." _

Albus nodded and rubbed his aching right shoulder tenderly. Young Harry did have a tendency to forget, as most young wizards did, that there were things greater than himself. It was only after the boy had fallen in love with someone whose happiness was dependent upon his wellbeing that the word _caution _had been introduced into his vocabulary. Albus smiled at the memory. The boy had grown into a young man, a young man who was well on his way to some well-deserved happiness.

The mist struck him square in the chest this time, and Albus flew into the memory with a grunt of pain.

_He glared at the boy, his entire figure radiating fury and menace. The old hatred was no longer a dark pulsing but a wild conflagration. Red-hot and searing, his hate was a living fire that immolated his chest and burned through his veins. The air around him tensed._

_"You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you," he said very quietly, "but I don't care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him." _

Albus was abruptly thrown to his knees in the mire with enough force to knock the breath from his body, but his heart was already shaken. He stared out through the mist sightlessly and did not move. _Severus, _he thought painfully, _Severus…_

Time passed.

Then, something flickered in the back of his mind. It was a tiny light that grew and brightened as it drew closer…

_Something was wrong. He glanced around the room quickly; they were outnumbered but winning nonetheless... _

"_Potter!" he heard Severus shout, and his heart nearly stopped. He whipped around only to watch as Severus shoved the boy down and deftly deflected the slicing hex that had been aimed at his back. Seconds later, the Death Eater was dead. Harry looked up, his surprise evident as he recognized his savior. "Thank—"_

"_To your left, Potter!" The boy whirled and fired off a stunner. And then the two of them were dueling together, fighting back-to-back as they faced the last of Voldemort's guards. _

"_Albus!" Minerva's sharp cry abruptly drew his attention back to the battle at hand. Ten minutes later they had defeated the last of the guards and stood poised to begin their final assault. Harry paused just before heading down the corridor and turned to glance back at Severus, startling everyone present. "Sir, I—"_

"_Now is not the time, Potter," Severus snapped, and the Weasleys bristled. Harry looked down instantly. A frown from Minerva was the only indication of her displeasure; they had both agreed not to interfere. But Severus's face was softening as he looked down at the boy's slumped shoulders. "I know, Potter," Severus said softly. The boy's head snapped up to stare at his professor incredulously. Watching from the background, he hid a smile; Minerva squeezed his hand tightly. "And you are welcome." When Harry continued to gape at him, Severus's hands twitched once and his eyes narrowed. "Shall we end this now? I think we've all waited long enough for you to fulfill your destiny," he said brusquely, gesturing towards the door._

_The tone was dry and classically Severus, but this time Harry smiled. A hint of a smile graced Severus's face in response, and Harry grinned broadly. Then, with Severus leading the way, the seven of them headed down to the last battle they would ever face. Albus knew before they took the first step that the battle was already won._

He straightened slowly and looked around. The mists around him had receded slightly. "I wonder what you would say if you knew that Harry has come to see you every week, Severus. He's been quite vocal in his support of you. The whole of the wizarding world now knows you for the hero that you are, my boy," Albus said quietly.

The response was immediate. The mist around him hissed, the mud beneath him bubbled, and a scorching heat replaced the chill air as Albus was pulled under the mire.

* * *

_A/N: Reviews are always appreciated! (and encourage more updating) Please let me know if this chapter made sense to you; suggestions are always welcome. _


	7. Beneath the Styx

_Chapter Seven: Beneath the Styx _

A/N: I know that 'I'm sorry' doesn't even begin to cover it. This chapter needs some more editing and such but I thought that I'd just post it, since the evil monster is _finally_ finished. Many thanks to everyone who reviewed; I'll try using the reply thing next time. Again, sorry! and onto the chapter (hope it's not too confusing)...

* * *

_From the last chapter:_

_He straightened slowly and looked around. The mists around him had receded slightly. "I wonder what you would say if you knew that Harry has come to see you every week, Severus. He's been quite vocal in his support of you. The whole of the wizarding world now knows you for the hero that you are, my boy," Albus said quietly._

_The response was immediate. The mist around him hissed, the mud beneath him bubbled, and a scorching heat replaced the chill air as Albus was pulled under the mire._

The heat was gone just as quickly as it had come, and Albus found himself being pulled deeper and deeper into the freezing filth of the mire. He could no longer see nor sense the surface and flailed wildly in the gelatinous waters. Frozen debris battered him as he was roughly yanked past it. Albus reached for his wand automatically, belatedly recalling that there was no wand and no magic here. His lungs burned. Despite his best efforts he gasped for breath, and the mire poured in.

"_What?" he cried, half-leaping out of his chair. "You're _not _going to expel them?"_

"_No, Mr. Snape, I will not." The old man was hatefully calm._

_He sank back into his chair, his eyes wide. "But…but Lupin's a _werewolf_! And Black…Black tried to _kill _me, Professor!" His hands were clenched tightly into fists at his side, but his body trembled slightly, and the buzzing in the back of his mind grew louder._

"_I know," Dumbledore said simply._

_The buzzing became a roar, and he exploded. "Sirius Black tried to _murder_ me, and you're not going to do a _damned thing _about it?" he hissed._

_Even in his anger, he noticed the Headmaster's slight flinch and gloried in it; still, when the old man spoke, his voice was definitive. "I will not expel him, Severus." _

_His eyes narrowed. "Please do not address me by my given name, _Headmaster_," he said sharply. _We are _not _friends.

_The Headmaster nodded sadly. He gritted his teeth in an effort to keep from speaking out, infuriated. "Very well, Mr. Snape. As I was saying, expelling Sirius Black would require me to explain the nature of his crime, and it is both cruel and unjust to make Remus Lupin suffer for his friend's folly. Furthermore—"_

"_Lupin is a _werewolf, _Professor!"_

_Dumbledore's blue eyes hardened. "Yes, he is. And he has suffered all his life for a twist of fate for which he bears no responsibility. I will not see him punished for another crime he has not committed."_

_He shook with fury, recognizing immediately that the Headmaster had no intention of disciplining Lupin in anyway. "And Black? Black should go to Azkaban for this," he said fiercely._

"_Mr. Black will remain at Hogwarts."_

"_WHAT?" he screamed, leaping up from his seat towards the Headmaster. "THAT ARROGRANT LYING BASTARD TR—" _

"_ENOUGH!" the Headmaster roared, rising to his feet. The very air around him crackled with power. He froze. "Sit down, Mr. Snape." He returned to his seat, glaring balefully at the man behind the desk. The air settled. He suppressed a shiver._

"_First of all, I do not believe that Mr. Black fully understood the consequences of his actions." The force of the Headmaster's gaze forbid him from objecting, but his opinion on the matter was clear. "At the age of sixteen, he remains far more a boy than a man, and I will not hand him to the dementors over some childish prank. Despite the severe lack of judgment that Mr. Black displayed tonight, I believe that he has great potential. More importantly, Mr. Lupin is in no way responsible for tonight's events; he badly misused by a friend he trusted. I will not see his life ruined for his friend's folly." At the conclusion of his little speech Dumbledore's eyes searched his face, but he had already carefully schooled his features. Only the tightness of his fists betrayed his anger. _

"_My father will take this to court," he said slowly, his eyes on Dumbledore's wand hand. _My father will take this to court,_ he thought vengefully,_ and Black will go to Azkaban, Lupin will be locked away like the animal that he is, and _you'll_ be fired, you miserable old fool

_The Headmaster looked over at him knowingly and raised an eyebrow. "Will he really?" Dumbledore mused, his tone deceptively mild._

_For a moment he could barely believe his ears. Color rose in his face and his hands trembled at the Headmaster's obvious insinuation. "My father will be more than pleased to support me in a case that reveals _your_ incompetence," he spat out finally, shaking. _As much as my _father_ hates me, he hates _you _more, _he thought, his fury nearly incandescent_.

_The Headmaster frowned. "I'm afraid that I cannot allow that, Mr. Snape," he said darkly._

_He was on his feet with his wand drawn in an instant, fully prepared to defend himself. "Stay away from me! You can't stop me!" His eyes darted towards the office door, no doubt sealed against him, and then to the windows. He would never be able to hold his own against the Headmaster, but maybe…_

"_Severus," Dumbledore said very softly. His eyes snapped back to the Headmaster, who held his hands out, palms up. HHis wand hand shook, but the Headmaster remained infernally calm. Then, in a move that shocked him to the core, the Headmaster slowly nodded his head in agreement. "I will not stop you." Only years of training kept him from dropping his wand. "Should you truly desire to bring your case to court, I will not stop you from doing so," Dumbledore reiterated slowly. He regarded the old man suspiciously but relaxed his hold on his wand, still watching the Headmaster for the slightest sign of movement. "But I do believe that there is someone else who can persuade you far more effectively than I." His head snapped up to look at the old man incredulously._

_Dumbledore smiled slightly at his expression and his unease grew. "He should be arriving shortly," the old man informed him. _

_They waited. A hesitant knock at the door startled him so badly that he whirled to face the sound, wand at the ready. "Ah, yes," the Headmaster said from behind him, sounding far too satisfied for his comfort. "Right on time. Come in," Dumbledore called. _

_His mind raced. _Who—? How—? Who could he have planned to meet me here? Not my father…and I'd report to the Aurors, but—

_The office door opened._

_Chaos erupted._

"_SECTUMS—"_

"_TR—" _

"Expelliarmus," the Headmaster said sharply. He snapped back as his wand was suddenly ripped from his hand to land with another in Dumbledore's outstretched hand. "Sit down, boys."

_They both ignored him._

"Potter_," he snarled. _

"_Snape." Potter hesitated. "Look, Snape, I'm sorry—" _

_A short, harsh bark of laughter escaped him, and for a moment Potter's eyes flashed dark as usual. Both tightened fists around wands that were no longer there._

"_Look, Snape, I really am sorry, all right?" the Gryffindor snapped. "Merlin knows I never _liked_ you, but I never wanted you dead."_

"_How kind of you," he sneered. "You couldn't dirty your hands killing me yourself so you just had your little friend and your pet _wolf _to do it for you."_

_Potter stiffened. "I didn't—" _

"_Don't," he hissed dangerously, feeling his chest expand with his fury. "Don't even try to tell me how you didn't plan this, you and Black. Beatings and humiliation weren't enough for you, were they? You had to have it all. Murder would have been such a wonderful _prank_." Potter visibly deflated with every word and flinched as he spat out the last._

"_Dammit, Snape, I swear I didn't know!"_

"_Swearing," he mused. "Isn't that what Black did after our last Arithmancy exam last year? He _swore _to Professor Burke that he hadn't touched my exam paper—"_

"_Sirius didn't touch your bloody exam paper," Potter said sharply._

_His lip curled as he stared his opponent down. "That was me," Potter admitted after a moment._

_His eyes widened. "Why you l—"_

"_Mr. Snape!" _

_He spun to face the Headmaster. "Well, you heard him. He deliberately sabotaged my Arithmancy exam. What are you going to do about it?" he demanded._

"_I will deal with Mr. Potter later," the Headmaster promised. "But right now, there is something that he wishes to speak to you about." Dumbledore looked at Potter encouragingly._

_Potter sighed. "Look, Snape, I don't expect you to believe me, but I'm sorry about what happened tonight," the Gryffindor said, ignoring his angry snort. "Like I said, I know that you don't believe me, but I am sorry. I…we shouldn't have done all that stuff to you over the last five years, even when you—" Potter cut himself off as his voice rose. _

_He smirked. He could practically _see _Gryffindor's golden boy mentally reviewing all the curses he had ever inflicted on them in return. He watched as the Gryffindor gathered himself and then stepped forward to look him straight in the eyes. "It was wrong, and I'm sorry," Potter said frankly, startling him. The Gryffindor oozed sincerity and remorse. Apparently Gryffindor House had greatly improved on its acting; had he not seen the skill behind _six years _of Potter's lies to his professors, he might have believed him._

_Perhaps sensing his skepticism, Potter turned away sharply. "I didn't know that Sirius was going to do this," he said angrily, almost to himself. Then he shrugged and looked over at him entreatingly. "I don't even think he really _planned_ this. Sometimes…sometimes he just does things without thinking them through. I'm sure he didn't mean to—to kill you, Snape, but…" _

_He ignored the Gryffindor completely for a moment, violently suppressing the Muggle instinct to simply punch him. The smack of flesh against bone would be so very satisfying...and so very _Muggle_. He grimaced at the thought and focused on Potter's words again. "…I'm just glad that I found out in time to save you."_

"_Save me?" he spluttered. "You mean you were too _cowardly_ to go though with it. Or, Merlin forbid, you actually _thought_...If I had _died _in there as Black planned, not only would that bastard be sent to Azkaban for life, but your pet _wolf _would be put down." Potter paled. "As I haven't been infected or killed, however, they'll probably just give the wolf a collar," he said, smiling slightly as Potter's face darkened. A collared werewolf—one known to the public—was little more than a dog in the Wizarding World, and he knew it. _

"_Dammit, Snape!" Potter turned to face Dumbledore and shook his head. The old man simply _looked _at him. With a sigh, Potter turned back to face him again. "Look, Snape, I came here tonight to ask you not to say anything about what happened."_

_He froze. "No."_

"_Snape—"_

"No." _He glanced over at the desk where the Headmaster sat, his face inscrutable, and then back to the other Gryffindor in the room._

_Potter's mouth tightened. "You owe me, Snape."_

"_For six years of hell, yes. I hope Black likes it in Azkaban," he said cruelly._

"_You owe me your life, Snape," Potter snapped harshly. "And damn it if you're not making me regret that."_

_They glared at each other, simmering. A sudden thought struck him and he glanced over at the Headmaster. "So that's how it is, then," he said slowly, his words falling like icicles on stone. "If your little ploy didn't kill me, then you'd claim I owed you a wizard's debt."_

_Potter reddened. "Believe whatever the hell you want, Snape," he swore furiously. "But you owe me a life, dammit, and I'm claiming it for Sirius."_

_He glared at the Gryffindor. "Even _if _I owed you a wizard's debt, you can't claim it for Black. He's not your blood."_

"_Sirius is my brother in every way that counts," Potter practically growled, gritting his teeth and pressing white-knuckled fists to his sides. _

"_Then you can go visit him in Azkaban," he sneered, crossing his arms._

"_Sirius won't go to Azkaban as long as I'm alive," Potter snarled. "I won't let you."_

"_You can't stop me," he gloated. _And my revenge will be complete.

"_Damn you, Snape!" Potter shouted. "I swear—"_

"_James!" the Headmaster said sharply. "That's enough, from both of you. I had hoped that you would be able to settle your differences amicably." Dumbledore looked at them over his half-moon spectacles reprovingly. Potter drooped a little at the rebuke. "The younger students look up to you, and your continuing animosity is driving your Houses apart. Had you acted as even _half _the princes that your housemates believe you are, this would not have happened." He blinked, snapping out of his hatred with a startling speed. Doing his best to keep his expression masked, he looked up at Dumbledore. The blasted Headmaster was watching him carefully. _

He knew.

_He waited. Dumbledore did not disappoint him. "In light of tonight's events, terrible as they were, I hope that you two might reach an understanding." The Headmaster paused, and then turned to look at him. "James did risk his life to save yours," Dumbledore said quietly._

_There was a long moment of silence as they stared at each other._

"_Snape."_

"_What?" he replied coldly, his eyes never leaving Dumbledore's._

"_I just want to forget that this night ever happened," Potter said wearily._

"_It happened." Neither he nor the Headmaster moved. _

_Potter continued. "I got there in time. Nobody got hurt. I'll make sure that Sirius never bothers you again. I swear it. Just…just forget that tonight ever happened."_

"Never_," he said in a low voice, startling the Gryffindor as he turned to face him. "I will _never _forget that Sirius Black tried to kill me." He watched in satisfaction as Potter's face paled and then steeled himself. "Unlike Black, I am a wizard. In payment of my debt to you, so long as you live I will not speak of tonight to anyone." The relief on Potter's face was infuriating; he could not bear to see the Headmaster's smugness as well. "If Black or Lupin—" He trembled slightly, the combination of fear and hatred overwhelming. "—_ever_ come near me again, I will kill them."_

_Potter swallowed hard and nodded. "Thank you."  
_

_He sneered and turned towards the Headmaster. "Are you done with me now?" he sniped. Stepping forward, he held his hand out imperiously. "My wand."_

_The Headmaster handed it over. "This is very good of you, Severus," the old man said, his voice the perfect combination of praise and pride. He wanted to vomit._

_Instead, he gritted his teeth, pocketed his wand, and turned on his heel to walk out. The Gryffindors did not stop him. As soon as he was out of sight, his legs gave way and he collapsed against the wall, shaking violently. _How…how could—?

_The sound of the Headmaster's voice from the door jerked him to his feet and sent his heart racing again. "Here, sit down, James. I know it's been a long night for you. Would you like a cup of cocoa? I seem to find that it always helps at times like these."_

"_Thank you, sir. I don't—"_

_The Headmaster's office door closed with an audible _click.

_There was a quick flash of pain, sharp and bitter, instantly suppressed with the ease of long practice. It took him a full six breaths for him to let go. Then he took control. This was life._

_He looked back at the office door, catching only the low murmur of voices and the crackle of a warm fire through the thick wood. A little light escaped from beneath the door and spilled out into the darkened stairwell. He stared at it blindly for a long moment. Eventually he took a deep breath and straightened. He glanced back at the office door and reached out towards the golden handle. The sound of laughter threw him back to reality, and he snatched his hand back as if burned. The lion adorning the knob laughed. And this time, finally, he turned away. He turned away and walked down the stairs, down into the dungeon, into the soothing chill of the dark, where Lucius was waiting for him with a glass of perfectly-aged blood-red wine. He accepted the glass without a word and drank deeply. He did not look back._

In the depths of the mire, the bitter, painful cold claimed Albus for its own.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts? Questions? Feedback is always appreciated. 


	8. Through the Styx

_Chapter Eight: Through the Styx_

A/N: My second round of midterms ended yesterday at 6 PM; this was my post-midterm party all evening. I am very, very sorry that I don't post any faster. I hate it when other people do that and am unfortunately guilty of that myself. This chapter, for some reasons that will be very clear and others that I hope are not, was absolutely terrible to write but will hopefully be much better to read.

Many thanks to my idea-bouncer-turned-beta, fallenwitch, who tries to ensure that I don't take this experiment too far away from sanity, and to everyone who reviewed the last chapter…best guilt trips ever.

* * *

_From the last chapter:_

_In the depths of the mire, the bitter, painful cold claimed Albus for its own._

There was nothing here but ice. Black ice, harsh and glaring, encased him a frozen prison. He had been tried, tested, and found wanting.

The cold _burned,_ a bone-deep chill that scalded him from the inside out. Albus hissed and instinctively withdrew into himself.

Then _it_ came, old and familiar, flowing up and around the ice to encircle his soul in the same frigid wind. It rose up like a black specter from within him, an inky darkness that washed through him and settled deep. It called up its brothers and they came, the dark avatars of his past. They circled around him like birds of prey, some diving down to attack, others waiting to pick on his remains. He shuddered violently as they passed through his chest, constricting around his heart, tighter and tighter until the blow struck home and he gasped painfully.

_…red-haired, fiery young Lily Evans, laughing as she flung her chocolate pudding straight into the shocked face of her boyfriend, James Potter. Sitting next to him at the Gryffindor table was Sirius Black, nearly choking with laughter at the scene, until James emptied the pumpkin juice pitcher over his head…_

_…a broken home, a sharp-edged wreckage of glass and wood. A chill wind sweeping through shattered windows and fluttering the edges of a bloodstained robe beside a pair of broken glasses. Upstairs, fiery red hair surrounding an unnaturally pale face, a stiff body with a small hand still reaching out towards a screaming toddler…_

_...a young man, haunted, laughing hysterically as the Aurors dragged him away…a pale, gaunt face dominated by dark, sunken eyes without a trace of laughter…_

_…Cedric Diggory, gray eyes shining as he smiled down at the slender young girl in his arms, spinning her in circles around the Great Hall..._

_…Cedric Diggory, gray eyes gaping and sightless, pallid face wet with his father's tears…_

_…green-eyed, fresh-faced Caradoc Dearborn grinning impishly as he teased him, Minerva's laugher bubbling over them both as the sun smiled down on the green hills of Scotland…_

_…Minerva's face at the news that her favorite nephew had vanished without a trace…watching her, week by week, the same green eyes haunted as the desperate hope killing her slowly died…_

_…a young, vibrant Alastor Moody, winking at his girlfriend as she left the Ministry, brown eyes smiling as he turned back to his Auror's report…_

_…rushing the young Auror into St. Mungo's, his body horribly mangled, his visage a grotesque mockery of a once-handsome face…the wizened, crooked, broken man who had been rescued after a year of captivity in a _trunk_…_

_…Alice Longbottom shaking hands with the Minister as she was presented with the Auror's Award for Admirable Action; Frank's smile as he watched her and then received the same…_

_…a round-faced little boy, just six years old, standing tall as his parents floated by him without a single spark of recognition, silent tears streaming down his face…_

_…six-year-old Sarah Bones, Edgar's youngest daughter. Edgar. Arleen. Katherine. Piers. Marcus. Benjy. Marlene. Dorcas. Gideon. Fabian. Hagrid…_

_…Minerva, small and fragile in a way that he had seen only in his nightmares, pale and lifeless as she lay in the hospital bed, thick white bandages hiding the angry red lines across her chest from him, bleeding because Hogwarts had needed her, because he had needed her…_

He did not realize that he was crying until the tears froze on his face.

_…he had needed her…because he had needed her…telling her the truth, watching through her green eyes as his words hit and her heart broke…Tom's face twisted in hatred and pain he realized that she was lost to him forever…Voldemort, the dead thing fleeing death, red-eyed hatred and nothing more…_

_…Tom's Death Eaters, students who had turned away from Hogwarts…_

_…and Severus…_

"Severus…" he whispered hoarsely, the accumulation of his greatest sins embodied in a name.

A knife of black ice ripped through his chest, missing his heart by inches.

_He took a step towards Dumbledore._

"_Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen," he breathed. "You haven't forgotten that, Headmaster? You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill_ _me?"_

"_My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus," said Dumbledore quietly._

_He turned on his heel and marched through the door that Fudge was still holding, his jaw clenched painfully tight._

Albus shuddered. He could feel himself bleeding, and as the warmth poured out of him, he knew that he was lost.

He could feel the ice sliding _into_ him now, a bitter chill that invaded and pervaded all of him. It was his punishment, a shard for every person he had ever failed…_alastorbellaharryjameslilysiriusseverusseverussev--_

… …

… …

… …

---------

#&($&)(#$

_pain._

_again._

_again._

It blazed down with a fierce intensity, burning bright streaks across the black canvas of his vision. He screamed as it struck, immolating his chest in an explosion of pain. Three more times, three more bolts, three more searing lancets of light struck him before his eyes snapped open involuntarily, and he gasped a loud, long, life-giving breath of cold air. The lightning ceased instantly.

After his first incautious breath left his lungs burning, Albus was careful to breathe shallowly for a minute. When he no longer felt as though he was drowning and the blazes had faded from his eyes, he glanced up and looked around. He was still completely encased in black ice, but now a warm, familiar aura of clear violet light surrounded him, a cloak against the cold. It almost tickled as it brushed his skin and then spread outwards, flowing over him like the warm caress of spring. And the ice around him melted in face of the light's advance, even as that light faded away. With the final dissolution of his prison, the light vanished, leaving only the memory of its warmth for Albus to keep.

Blinking, Albus stepped forward shakily and shivered. Without the warmth of Minerva's magic, the air around him seemed even colder than the ice had been. Still, he smiled a little. Even here, it seemed, Minerva came to save him.

Now it was his turn to save Severus. Albus looked up and frowned a little. The ground beneath him was a grayish brown, rocky and hard. His vision here was perfectly clear, and yet he could see nothing. The gray-brown of the land ran on until it met the lighter gray-blue of the sky, but try as he might, Albus could not discern a single object between the two of them. Total in its desolation, this was the ultimate desert, devoid of even shape and color.

It was the absolute silence, however, that bothered Albus the most. The halls of Hogwarts always seemed to echo with the sounds of children, even in the summer months. But here, here there was no trace of anything, alive or dead, anywhere. The unnaturalness of it made his skin prickle.

He scanned the area around him slowly, searching for any indication of which direction he ought to go. Finding no markers of any kind, Albus simply set his shoulders and began to walk forward.

He moved forward determinedly, his steps quick and purposeful. He had no idea how much progress he was making or even where he had begun. The terrain around him did not change in the slightest. His only companion was the sound of his own footsteps.

He kept walking.

…

Albus had no idea how long he had been walking, only that his legs were long past the point of tiring. The waste seemed infinite. He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then, for the first time in what seemed like hours, he felt a tiny flutter of air brush past him. Struggling to conceal a smile, he put one foot in front of the other, and continued walking.

…

Some time later, he noticed that the ground was gradually dropping away. His heart racing, Albus followed the slight slope downhill to find a rickety old boat beached on the shore of an immense black sea. He could have sworn that both had just appeared out of nowhere.

Albus walked down to the boat, a weathered little vessel barely large enough to fit two people. He glanced around, puzzled, but there was not even a stick with which to try and propel the craft, though it appeared to have been recently used.

He looked out across the dark waters and frowned, unable to shake a strange feeling of unnaturalness as he gazed out over the perfectly still, obsidian ocean. It was a seemingly infinite pool of darkness, almost beautiful in its silent tranquility.

"But always dark," he whispered sadly, "always dark."

_So bring him light._

The startling clarity of the thought stunned him into immobility for a moment, but he recovered quickly. Within moments he was making his way down to the water again, buoyed by a renewed sense of purpose. Perhaps the oars had been left inside the boat, or maybe there would be some other kind of clue, he thought as he neared the craft. He leaned forward andreached out a hand to steady himself againstside of the boat as he peered inside.

He was not prepared for the memory he was thrown into.

_He opened his door two inches, looked out, and resisted the urge to slam the door shut again. "What do_ you _want?" he growled, glaring at her. Minerva only looked at him pointedly, then inside at his sitting room. When he continued to scowl at her from the doorway, the infernal woman reached her hand up as if to push his door open herself. He stepped back and allowed her entry with an ill grace, shooting her a baleful glare as she pushed past him._

_Minerva seated herself on his couch gracefully, leaning forward slightly as she clasped her hands together. He sat opposite her, reclining in his favorite armchair, and raised a practiced eyebrow. "Well?"_

_"Severus…" Minerva hesitated for a moment, shook her head a little, and then continued on determinedly. "I came to ask you for a favor."_

_If anything, his expression soured. "What?" he snapped._

_Again, Minerva hesitated. "I was hoping that you would speak to Miss Cooper. As you know, her father—"_

_"—failed the Dark Lord and got himself killed for his trouble," he replied harshly._

_"Yes," she said softly. "The girl hasn't been eating. She hasn't slept more than a few hours without nightmares, and I was hoping that—"_

_"—that I could somehow say something to her that would make the fact that her father was incompetent as well as_ evil _all right?" he said sarcastically, his voice rising._

_"Well, yes," she snapped back. "Her mother died a few years ago, but she's never felt comfortable talking to me so I—"_

_"Merlin forbid that one of your precious little lions feel 'uncomfortable' speaking with_ you_," he sneered._

_"What is_ that _supposed to mean?" she asked sharply._

_"Only that you must be feeling quite desperate for you to come to_ me_." It was her turn, now, to raise an eyebrow, and somehow the motion infuriated him. "Then again, it's not that hard to believe that Minerva McGonagall failed as a surrogate mother. Nothing touches_ you_. Merlin grant that you never have any children of your own if you can't even handle your charges."_

Albus physically recoiled in shock at Severus's words, momentarily jerking him out of the memory as he stumbled away from the boat. He gasped once before an unseen force tossed him bodily against the boat, forcing him back to watch Minerva's reaction with a horrified despair.

_Minerva blanched violently and for a single moment her expression was entirely unguarded._

_Her green eyes were wide, shimmering with the slightest sheen of tears and shadowed with a pain deeper than he had believed himself capable of causing. The Legilimens connection was unintentional but instantaneous. There was an echo of a soul-deep scream in his mind, of a raging, howling blackness…and then nothing. Minerva's face had gone utterly, frighteningly blank._

_"Well, I suppose that settles the question," she said coolly after a long moment. "I apologize for my intrusion, Professor Snape. I'll leave you to your business, then," she said before rising stiffly and heading towards the door. A moment later, she was gone._

Albus took a few wild, drunken stumbles away from the boat before sliding to the ground. The impact reoriented him and he stiffened instantly, eyes darting about to identify further threats. None came. In fact, it seemed as though the invisible force around him was almost hesitant to approach him.

_Oh God, Minerva…_Albus recalled painfully. Minerva had never mentioned the incident to him, which led him to believe that it was probably within the first few years of their reacquaintance with Severus; the young man could not have known at the time that his employer and the Head of his rival House were married. _I could have hated him for that, and she knew how badly I wanted to save him…but dear Merlin, Minerva…_

He closed his eyes, recalling the tiny, bloodstained bundle that the nurse had placed in his arms. _A son. Connor Aberforth Parsifal Dumbledore, who never took a single breath in this world._ The single, shattered cry from Minerva that followed when she realized what had happened echoed in his mind. A similar cry: a low, mournful sound of loss, when they were told that they would never have another child. Albus choked. _Minerva, choked with tears, shuddering with the force of her sobs as her body rocked back and forth, her knees pulled up tightly to her chest as she quietly screamed out her grief…_

Albus's entire body shook with the force of his emotions, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists of impotent fury. The very air around him trembled.

"NO!" he roared, and the sound seemed to echo even in the dismal, endless plane.

_Connor. Minerva._ His swift descent into sorrow swept away his anger like the rush of the tide.

Albus took a deep breath, and then another, his hands falling limply to his sides. Minerva had clearly forgiven Severus. If she had done so already, then he could do no less. Severus's transgression had been made in ignorance, after all, and despite all their protests to the contrary, it was clear that the two rival Heads of Houses had become very good friends.

_Well, old man, I _am_ your better half_, she said lightly, and as her lilting voice washed over him, Albus found a fragile peace.

_We lost one son already. I will not lose another. After all,_ he thought with a slight smile, _I have a promise to keep_. Absolutely certain of what he needed to do now, Albus pushed the old boat as far into the water as he could without touching it himself, lifted one leg into the boat and shoved off the shore hard with the other. It took him a while to stabilize himself in the flimsy little craft, but he finally found himself firmly seated in the boat and drifting very slowly out into the black water.

Albus settled his hands in his lap and looked up.

"Let me in, Severus," he said quietly. "Let me help you." _Let me save you this time, Severus._

There was a shiver in the air around him, and then the boat moved forward. Albus did not look back as the black waters faded behind him.

* * *

A/N: This chapter was evil and requires more work, but I hope you liked it. Questions, comments, criticism always appreciated. Thanks for reading! 

For those who have asked what's next, this fic was inspired by the following:_ Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate._


	9. The Gates of Dis

_Chapter Nine: The Gates of Dis_

_From the previous chapter: _

_Albus settled his hands in his lap and looked up._

"_Let me in, Severus," he said quietly. "Let me help you." _Let me save you this time, Severus.

_There was a shiver in the air around him, and then the boat moved forward. Albus did not look back as the black waters faded behind him._

He sailed through the darkness slowly. There was no light here, and yet the water beneath him glistened and the sky churned above him. The little craft sliced through the starless night soundlessly and left no wake behind.

His eyes caught the red glow surrounding the shoreline before he could see the land itself. As the boat neared the distant shore, he could feel the temperature rising, the shimmer in the air distorting all before him. The stench that emanated from the far shore made his stomach churn, but like the heat, its intensity only increased as he neared his destination.

The boat ran aground on another rocky shore, no different in nature than the one he had just left except for the dim red glow leaking over the rise ahead. Albus stepped out of the boat and felt his boots sink into the sand. His heart jolted a little, but he relaxed as he realized that this ground supported him strongly. Surprisingly heartened by this little discovery, Albus began the trek up the shore.

When he reached the crest of the hill, he was forced to pause for a moment, temporarily overwhelmed by the hellish heat and the fetid stench that bowled him like a tidal wave. His eyes watered, and when his vision had cleared, he stopped again in startled recognition.

Hogwarts Castle rose below him, but this was not his home and house of dreams. This was a grotesque mockery of that which he loved. The massive stones of its walls and towers were a dull rust-red; Hogwarts drenched in dried blood. The colorful flags and banners that waved proudly from the top of every turret of his castle had become streams of hellfire, red-hot and angry. The entire structure simmered.

Albus swallowed hard.

He looked down. It was a good hundred-foot drop of sheer cliff face to the bottom, a deterrent far more effective than any fence. Albus merely set his jaw and began to scour the edge for a way down to the castle. At first he feared that the only way down was to fly but then he found a small traversable section. Some fortunate explosion had so shaken the area that the path before him was nothing more than a gravelly slope of shale. Feeling rather defenseless, he began the trek down the slope, half-sliding, half-skating down the cliff side.

Never before had Albus felt as dwarfed by the gates of Hogwarts as he did now. Even as a first year, the castle had always felt welcoming to him. For the first time in his life, Albus walked towards a Hogwarts whose gates were closed to him.

The castle gargoyles were obscene, warped into sickeningly accurate representations of people in agony. Albus did not allow himself to examine too deeply how Severus could have created so many individual faces in such detail. After recognizing Benjy Fenwick, neck twisted at an impossible angle, face distorted into a caricature of agony, mouth opened in a silent scream, Albus assiduously avoided close inspection of the other gargoyles.

The great doors dominated him. Gathering his Gryffindor courage, he moved forward confidently, but the clench of his jaw, the staccato beat of his heart, and the faint trembling of his hands betrayed him.

He reached out and pulled on the nearest ring.

A great roar shook the castle instantly, rattling its foundations and sending out a fine dusting of blood stone. The rusty iron handles flamed scorching hot in a brilliant scarlet flash, and he was flung back.

"**_GET OUT!_**" He glanced up at the doorway, shocked. It was Severus's voice; Severus, who spoke for _this _castle. "**_GET OUT, DAMN YOU!_**" Blue eyes widened as the sky above churned and crackled with lightning. "**_YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE HERE._**"

Deeply shaken, Albus scrambled to his feet and turned to face the castle squarely. "No, I—"

"**_GET OUT!_**" This time, it was a roar. The earth did not merely shake; it cracked, crevassed and rose up, hurling Albus away so hard that he was surprised not to hear the _crack _of bone as he hit the ground. The air around him burned.

Gasping, he pushed himself to his knees. "No," he said firmly. "I won't leave you, Severus."

"**_WHY NOT?_**"

_Because I wronged you. Because I owe you. Because I love you. Because… _"Because you deserve better than this," he replied sincerely, rising to his feet.

"**_And I suppose that it is _your _place to determine what I deserve?_**_" _He realized suddenly what Hermione Granger had felt like when Severus had finally lost his temper—truly lost his temper—with her and spelled out _exactly_ what he thought of her _brutish and willful ignorance_ and_ uncouth airs of superiority: _shocked, surrounded, and irredeemably stupid. It was unquestionably Severus; the distinct combination of bitterness, sarcasm, and extraordinary intelligence that had always marked his speech was unmistakable. It also made discussions with him particularly challenging, Albus recalled.

"You deserve the best, Severus," he said quietly.

"_**The **_**best_? You_ _seem innately incapable of giving anyone_ _but your precious _Gryffindors_ any grace, _Headmaster_. How many others _died_ for your stubborn pride?_**_" _

"Hundreds," he whispered, blue eyes haunted. "Hundreds have died for my mistakes, Severus, and like you, I can remember _every single one of them_ in my dreams." He straightened. "I may have failed them, but I will not fail _you_."

"**Fail _me? Even here…even _HERE,_ you come to take my peace. Haven't you taken enough from me already? You took my only chance at _any_ childhood, my only hope for love, and swept away every wisp of happiness that ever blew my way. You denied me my _DEATH _and demanded my life for _your _cause, _your _children—for _you. _And I, fool that I was, gave it to you—THREE TIMES, DUMBLEDORE, I LIVED AND DIED FOR YOU. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?_**_" _Albus flinched automatically as a blast of heat roared down upon him, blistering the sensitive skin of his face._ "**YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO WANT **_**ANYTHING _FROM ME!_**"

Albus stood frozen for three full breaths before he spoke, eyes closed and face pained. "I do not want anything _from _you, my boy," he said at last. "But there are so many things…there is so much that I want _for _you, Severus. Peace, perhaps, would be the first. But there is also joy. You have no idea how much I wish that for you," he finished in a whisper.

"_**Far less than you wished for the flimsiest rumor of the Dark Lord.**" _The bitterness in Severus' voice could have spoiled vinegar._"**You ordered me to **_**years _of torture, deception, and danger without a second thought. My _happiness? I_ was a small price to pay for any scrap of information you could get your hands on. We were nothing but pawns in your precious game, Dumbledore, and you willingly sacrificed every one of us…even your golden boy, your _beloved _Harry Potter._**_" _A dark laugh echoed through the castle. "**_All those years you let him get away with everything—you weren't showing that boy any leniency, were you? Each and every time…you were training your little warrior, molding your perfect weapon—a boy utterly loyal to you, a boy who believed that it was solely _his_ responsibility to rid the world of the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries—a fearless, ruthless, and totally _obsessed _warrior. Never mind that those qualities were largely derived from his ignorance—ignorance of the true danger, of the consequences, of the _hundreds _of others ready, willing, and _able _to take the place you conjured for him in his mind._**_"_

"**_Riddle was just too _honest _with Draco, wasn't he?_**_" _The voice softened slightly at the boy's name, but the tone was still sharp enough to slice stone. "**_Riddle included his heir in the _real _work, the dirty, dangerous, despicable acts that are day-to-day warfare. Had Potter been equally well informed, perhaps the _both_ of the boys would have been smart enough to leave the old men to fight their own battles._**"

"**_But _you…_you crafted your lies so carefully. You let your weapon believe in a line between _good _and _evil, _and that _evil _was inhuman, and thus that the _target_ of the spell mattered more than the curse itself. Your machinations created the perfect weapon. A boy so desperate for love that he would do anything, even learn the darkest of curses, to win your approval. A boy taught the best of classroom battle magic, but carefully kept from the _real _consequences of battle so that he could _use _those dark curses without remorse. And he did it, didn't he? That boy fearlessly led his classmates into the fortress of the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries and destroyed his enemy with the darkest curse known to magic. Congratulations, Albus, your would-be grandson is the only known human to have ever literally _destroyed_ a _soul_. Tom Riddle didn't die when he became Lord Voldemort—he was _destroyed _by Harry Potter, his soul torn to pieces before being erased from existence, never to know peace in this life or any other. Potter didn't understand what that spell would do until it was too late; you _spared_ him that. Congratulations, Albus, your war was won by brave, foolish children; it was survived by broken, twisted, and disillusioned adults._**_"_

There was a long silence.

He couldn't breathe.

_No._

"No," he gasped, choking. "No. That's not—I would never—"

"_**You would never do **_**what, _Dumbledore? Never knowingly train an army of _children _and send them to war? Never knowingly manipulate a boy's _entire life_ to mold him into your perfect weapon? Never willfully destroy everyone you ever claimed to have loved—your future wife,_ _your would-be son, your precious students?_**_"_

"_**You did all that and more**_**, _you old hypocrite! Face the truth, Dumbledore—_you_ brought the darkness to Hogwarts._**_"_

He could not seem to catch his breath, no matter how hard he tried. The ground spun beneath him, and the sheen of perspiration on his skin clung to him like guilt.

"_I am so sorry that you had to find out about him this way, Minerva…"_

"_No! It's impossible!"_

"_Severus, you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready ... if you are prepared ..."_

"_I am."_

"_So—so does that mean that ... that one of us has got to kill the other one ... in the end?"_

"_Yes."_

_Yes._

_Yes._

_Could Minerva have saved Tom? If he had let her go, would she have found him, saved him—or joined him? What would Tom Riddle have become, if not for Lord Voldemort? _

_Would Severus have chosen differently if Sirius Black had been expelled? If he had not broken faith with one student to save another, would Severus have left Voldemort in time to save the Potters? Would Severus have even joined the Death Eaters at all?_

_And Harry, then, would Harry have grown up with parents who adored him and the younger siblings those parents had always wanted for him, an ordinary wizarding boy who dreamed of playing quidditch for England and whined about having to de-gnome the garden, a boy whose greatest worry was that his mother would find out about the old broom he'd hidden under his bed?_

What if?

The vision came with startling clarity, and he was not sure whose projection it was.

…_Minerva, dressed in a dark scarlet, strode into the Great Hall, arguing emphatically with the Headmaster about the dangers of his extremely liberal approach to Defense Against the Dark Arts; from the High Table, the younger Professor Riddle looked on in amusement as his parents paused to greet Professor Lupin and then continued their argument without missing a beat. At the Gryffindor table, Helen Potter teased her older brother mercilessly about his new girlfriend, while at the Slytherin table, Aurora Snape's wry observation had drawn a short laugh from Draco Malfoy. Farther down the hall, Cedric Diggory was giving Jamie Black some long-overdue advice about the fairer sex while his girlfriend observed them both with affectionate amusement…_

"I did what I thought was necessary," he said, but his voice sounded weak even to his ears. "I did my best to keep them safe."

"**_Your 'best' was insufficient, then. The Ministry's 'Wall of Heroes' might as well be your personal 'Wall of Failures.' Even those you tried to keep safe fared better fighting in the vanguard than they did under your care. Staying 'safe' left Potter to a family unfit to care for a kneazle, nearly drove Black insane before his death, and made Minerva so sick with worry that she nearly faded away._**"

Albus winced, but answered levelly. "I wanted them to survive the war. I chose to hope that there would be time in the future for happiness."

"**_And what of those who _have_ no future? Percy Weasley was unhappy nearly all his life; dying a hero with his family around him is a poor consolation._**"

A spark lit at the mention of the wayward Weasley son; blue eyes darkened with an answering fire. "Percy chose his own fate," Albus replied sharply. "What is it that you _want_ of me, Severus? I am all too well aware of my own fallibility. I have hurt you greatly, and I am deeply sorry for it. What do you want from me? A confession? I—"

"**_I want _answers_, Dumbledore!_**" Thunder boomed overhead. "**_Who named _you _a god? Who gave you the right to decide the fates of every wizard and witch in England? WHAT RIGHT DID YOU HAVE TO DESTROY MY LIFE?_**_"_

Albus rocked back on his heels, struck by the force of the searing blast of heat at Severus' final accusation. "None," he gasped, after a moment. "I do not have a right to decide anything for anyone—nor have I the power to do so. Every man chooses his own fate."

"**_What of your precious _prophecies, _then?_**"

The sudden flare in his eyes matched the strike of lightning overhead as his head snapped up; his hands were clenched as he replied. "A prophecy is nothing more than a_ possible_ future. I _chose_ to do everything in my power to prevent England from falling into darkness. I could have run. Britain has not had a Merlin in more than five hundred years; one old woman's words at my birth could not change that. Free will is everything, Severus; our one great gift. I stayed to fight. Harry did the same."

"_**And this **_**choice _of yours gave you the right to manipulate the lives of those around you to further your own ends?_**"

Albus flinched. "No," he admitted after a short pause. "But what I did, I did for love. I may have been foolish, selfish, arrogant—even greedy—but you cannot fault me for that. I did what I thought best for everyone. Education can be seen as manipulation—or as enlightenment, empowerment."

His voice grew stronger and clearer as he continued. "All I want—all I have ever wanted—is to make Hogwarts a place in which the young minds of wizarding Britain are cultivated and properly trained, a place in which all young witches and wizards, regardless of heritage, wealth, or any other circumstance are given the finest magical education in the world. I want Hogwarts to endure as a safe haven for youth and learning."

"**_And is that _all?**"

Albus started at the sneer and hesitated. The sky above darkened with disdain. "No," he confessed quietly, hands limp and soul bleak. "There was a time, once, when I thought that I would soon be holding my son, and I dreamed of a small house by the sea…"

…_Minerva in a light green sundress, her hair dancing down her back in glorious midnight waves, a large, wide-brimmed hat on her head, laughing and smiling as the fire-haired toddler in her arms tried to escape the confines of their picnic blanket to join her older siblings. She shot him a resigned, amused smile before rising with her usual grace, picking up the child and securing her on her hip as she headed down to the water's edge. The babe giggled happily and clapped her hands together. He was grinning, too, as he rose to follow them. Splashing in the shallows before them were their two older children. Connor shook his head, his dark hair splattering his sister with sea water. Catríona shrieked and dipped a hand into the water, retaliating with a small wave, and then the fight was on in earnest. By the time their mother had reached the shore, both were soaking wet and smiling. Catríona's auburn hair was plastered to her face, but her green eyes were sparkling. He barely caught the familiar light of mischief in his son's blue eyes before he, too, was unceremoniously invited to join the fun. Minerva's laughter echoed behind him as he suddenly found himself under attack from both his children…_

"…but I was not so fortunate," he finished, his voice breaking slightly. He was still shaking with the effort of pulling away from the last beautiful, heartbreaking vision. Albus knew every detail to that long-ago dream by heart: the exact shade of his daughter's eyes, the clear sound of his son's laugher, the relaxed, unconscious grace that characterized Minerva in times without war. The phantom warmth of one perfect, glorious day spent with his wife and children echoed though him, and Albus ached as he ruthlessly suppressed any longing for what was forever lost. He looked up at the blood-red castle and the tempest in the skies and closed his eyes wearily. "Once upon a time, Severus, I thought that I, too, might be deliriously, normally happy."

There was a moment's pause, but no abatement in bitterness. "**_And so what you could not have you denied to everyone around you?_**"

"No, Severus," he answered quietly, eyelids trembling with the weight of his grief. "I worked so that everyone else could have what I could not." His eyes opened slowly, but Albus could not see the castle gates before him, nor feel the heat around him; he was lost in another time, another place. "I lost everything to war. To my _destiny, _if you will. Minerva's pregnancy was complicated by remnants of her war wounds—wounds she received for following me into battle," he said, his mouth and words twisted in bitter recrimination. His eyes flashed a deep sea blue in remembrance and pain"Aberforth is the only family we have left now, and Minerva was one of seven. Between clearing up the last of Grindelwald's shadows and Voldemort hovering on the horizon, we could never adopt. I gave up everything for Hogwarts, for England."

"**_Everything but Minerva._**" The voice was quieter now, and Albus's eyes refocused on the castle doors as the air around him cooled.

"That was not an option," he replied simply.

There was a short pause. "**_Why are you here, Albus?_**"

It was a question this time, not an accusation, and Albus considered it seriously. He recalled his earlier response. He _had_ wronged Severus, and although the injury had been unintentional, its sting was magnified by the fact that the wrong itself had been an oversight. He had unconsciously driven Severus from Hogwarts, excluded the boy from the very sanctuary he was working to offer to all. Years later, when Severus had returned to the castle, he had taken in the broken young man, protected him from both the blood-thirsty Ministry and the grief-crazed Death Eaters, and given him a new life and purpose. He had simultaneously condemned that same young man to a life of deception and danger, to an existence constantly threatened by simmering resentment and disgust from both sides, and to a life without love…

No, that was not quite right either.

Albus frowned unconsciously, brows furrowed as he focused his attention inward. He was not risking his life because he felt he _owed_ Severus; if anyone, he owed it to Minerva to stay alive and give them time to enjoy their lives in peace.

Yet he was here in this not-place while she waited for him in the other world—the real world—and managed it without him again.

He had come in desperation and despair, contracted his deputy's assistance under duress, and thrown himself to the mercy of another's mind without a thorough dissection of his motives. He had come to save Severus.

It was not about debt, although he felt it to be an obligation. This transcended petty accountings and defied quantification. It was…

_...smiling at the mirror the two opponents presented, both frowning, leaning forward in their chairs, darkly intent as they scrutinized the board before them and then sharply ordered their troops forward…_

…_talking late into the night, discussing the effects of using the blood of a Chinese Fireball instead of a Norwegian Ridgeback in an Ashefaren potion, deprecating and defending the latest batch of first years, and debating various strategies for diffusing the anger that Albus's latest flight of fancy would inevitably produce amongst the staff with the warmth of a crackling fire behind them, unaware of the hour as the two empty mugs of hot cocoa turned to four, then six…_

…_mouth twitching at the corners at the sight of the young Potions Master glaring at him from beneath a crooked, flimsy, red paper crown and muttering imprecations in multiple languages as he shook the shimmering remains of the Muggle cracker off his black robes…_

Albus looked up slowly, the same ghost of a smile gracing his face. He had not come in judgment or even for justice. He did not know or care what Severus _deserved. _He knew only what he _wanted_ for him. "I have come to see you home, Severus," he said quietly. His words dropped into the darkness slowly, evenly, too heavy to lift and too light to sink; bare truth that hovered in the air, trembling in revelation. "I have come to see you happy, healthy, and whole. I have come to see you find true peace, and to know joy. I have come to see you accept praise where it is due, and companionship when desired. I have come to see you dream and chase those dreams with hope. I have come to see you find and accept love."

His breath sounded soft and quiet in the night air as he waited.

"**_Why?_**"

This time there was no hesitation in his answer. "Because Minerva and I love you and we want you home, Severus. We want you happy and we want you home. It is as simple as that."

There was a great metallic groan, an aching release, and then the rusted castle doors creaked open, and Albus walked straight on into the darkness.

* * *

A/N: The City of Dis in Dante's Inferno is the entrance to Lower Hell (and its geographic center, I believe). 

My thanks to fallenwitch for reading this and forgiving my tendency to cling to posts. And to everyone who reviewed, because nothing's better than knowing that other people like your work. Even when you're unforgivably tardy in posting it.


	10. The River of Fire

_Chapter Ten: The River of Fire_

A/N: As usual, this is so incredibly late that I'm sure many of you believed that I'd quit on this story. Well, I haven't, and have decided to continue it despite HP 6 & 7. This is utterly un-canon, and I'm perfectly happy with that (I hope you will be, too).

WARNING: the story gets deeper, darker, and even more gruesome from here on in. Consider yourself warned, and please don't read if that disturbs you. I have been told both that this is very D-A-R-K and that it's not that dark for Snape-fic. Both are true.

The chapter title is from the river of blood, the Phlegethon ("lake of fire") that burns in the seventh level of Dante's Hell (where those violent against neighbors burn).

* * *

_From the last chapter:_

_There was a great metallic groan, an aching release, and then the rusted castle doors creaked open, and Albus walked straight on into the darkness._

His decided stride had just marked a dozen paces when he heard the great doors swing shut behind him. Albus spun on his heel in an instant, right arm snapping out, and was just in time to watch as the last of the light vanished before his wandless fingers. He was left in darkness with only the clicking of the lock system as the iron slid into place. Then, at last, all was silent.

There were now three inches of iron, thirteen inches of wood, and one hundred and fifty-six locks between him and the way back.

There was no going back.

His heart skipped a beat and he turned away before he could think any more about it. Albus raised his head and took another dozen steps forward, grateful that there was no one to see the faint trembling of his hands as he did so.

The darkness here was absolute; he could tell the motion of his hand before his face only by the brush of the faint wind it created. His heart fluttered as he moved forward, blind and suddenly bereft of his former boldness.

In his Hogwarts, he would now be standing in the center of the Entrance Hall, but this was Severus' castle. _Severus. _

"Where do I go now, Severus?" Albus asked quietly, his voice dissipating into the cavernous space.

A dark silence was his only response, and he shivered a little as he felt the weight of unknown eyes. He was lost and helpless, and he knew it.

He closed his eyes against the darkness, but the pressure of those unknown gazes continued to haunt him. Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do? This was not his Hogwarts, but in a castle even half its size it would take an age to find anything, provided one could survive the trip blind. A little frisson of panic ran down his spine, and he took another deep breath. Where to begin?

_Start at the beginning._

Albus turned to his right and made ten steps on pure faith before he caught a whisper of sound and started. Closing his eyes instinctively, he held his breath and listened intently, and was rewarded with a strange whispering sound in front of him. The noise puzzled him, but the location did not. Severus was nothing if not logical. Moving by memory alone, he turned towards the noise and began the thirty-five paces to the doors of the Great Hall.

It was with his third step that the unease that had plagued him from the moment he first caught sight of the castle suddenly spiked, startling his heart into a staccato beat. He could feel it rising within him, an increasing flood of panic that threatened to take him under. He gritted his teeth and wiped his suddenly slick palms on the edge of his robes before pushing forward. His heart thundered within his chest with every step, nearly bursting in its effort to break away from his ribs.

_His new classmates were looking around in wonder as they moved through the Entrance Hall, and after a moment's hesitation he followed their gazes and looked up. His eyes widened. His heart stopped. The floor spun beneath him and he stumbled, all the blood draining from his face. His foot caught on someone's shoe and he lurched backwards, crashing into the boy behind him._

_He scrambled to his feet, flinching away from the proffered hand and muttering an apology as he brushed off his robes, his hand casually slipping to his wand. His eyes never left the other boy, but his newest acquaintance seemed only surprised and a little…hurt?_

"_It's no problem," the other boy said quietly, looking away for a moment. His eyes narrowed at the gesture, but his expression was neutral as the boy looked up at him again. His robes were no nicer than his own, his light brown hair unremarkable, but his eyes were a most unusual shade of gold. He shifted slightly, unnerved, but although his motion was negligible, more a mental exercise than a gesture, the other boy suddenly stepped back as though struck. "Sorry," the stranger muttered, looking at his feet again._

_His growing suspicion only further agitated the other boy, who continued to look more and more ashamed under his scrutiny, which served only to alarm him further._

"_Come along, you two," the professor instructed sharply, and they both moved to obey instantly. He listened with half an ear as Professor McGonagall explained the Houses of Hogwarts; already familiar with his destination, he took the time to study his future classmates instead. _

_There were three others who also studied the crowd rather than the speaker, and with their mutual acknowledgements he found more familiar ground. It was with the fourth whose eyes he met that he found trouble—a tall, black-haired boy with the attitude and attire of an arrogant prince was regarding him suspiciously. His brown eyes narrowed as they met his own, flickering once towards the unnatural boy between them. This one was different, and he prepared himself for the inevitable conflict._

_As soon as the professor stepped out of the antechamber, the other boy closed the distance between them in four strides, never breaking his gaze._

"_What were you doing to Remus?" he accused him. The quiet muttering amongst the others behind them ceased abruptly._

"_Remus?"_

_The other boy pointed to the golden-eyed freak that looked as though he wanted to sink into the floor._

"_I wasn't doing anything to him," he retorted sharply._

_The other boy stepped closer, fists clenching. "You must've been doing something…"_

"_James, please, leave it," the boy called Remus said softly. His golden eyes kept flickering between the two of them as though trying to decide which to fear more._

"_No," James said angrily, and Remus flinched and drew back into the crowd. "I won't just leave it. If he was bothering you—"_

"—_then you'll come over and ask me to play nice?" he sneered._

"_Yeah," James said slowly, his hand reaching for his wand. "I will."_

_His wand was out in an instant, leveled straight at his new enemy as he hastily backed away. _

_James's eyes narrowed. "Expelliarmus!"_

_A jet of red light shot towards him, and he reacted automatically. "Protego! _Everte Statum!"

_A harsh blast of wind threw James from his feet and down the hall, his wand clattering to the ground a few feet behind him. His blood was racing in his veins, and he leapt back again as he sensed some motion in the crowd. Another dark-haired boy was moving forward, black eyes intent._

_He needed space, needed air, needed them to go away and stay away. He raised his wand. "Serpensortia!" _

_There was a rushing, a slight whisper in the air, and then a gigantic serpent burst forth from the end of his wand. It was nearly two meters in length, a magnificent specimen of patterned scales and venomous eyes. There was a collective intake of breath as the snake slowly coiled into a striking position, and he took the moment's relief to briefly admire his creation. The dark oval spots were correctly bordered in black and white, the V-pattern on the head distinctive, and he knew exactly what its venom could do. The chain viper raised its enormous triangular head and hissed loudly at the nearest first-years, who drew back as one, eyes wide and frightened at the sight of its glistening fangs._

_He glanced over at his opponent. The boy James was slowly pushing himself up from the ground, adjusting his glasses as he sat upright. He could tell the moment James caught sight of the snake. His face turned a pallid gray, his pupils widening until his eyes appeared black. It was the tiny whimper that snapped him back into the present, and to a niggling sense of guilt._

"_Evanesco_,_" he said quietly. His beautiful viper vanished without a sound. _

_There was a shocked silence in the room. No one moved, but his eyes flickered across them all warily, his hand clenching his wand in a white-knuckled grip._

_On the other side of the room, James had struggled to his feet and regained his wand. They eyed each other cagily, but neither made any motion to move. The first rumblings of anger could be heard from the crowd beside him when Professor McGonagall appeared again and took in the entire scene with a glance. _

_Her lips thinned. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?"_

_They shook their heads, but their eyes never left the other. "No, Professor."_

"_Well, come along then," she said crisply, stepping between them. Then, louder, "Please form a line and follow me." Even with half a second's warning, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt the weight of her hand on his shoulder. _

_She was startled, he could see, but recovered quickly. "Are you all right?" Her half-concerned, half-assessing gaze lingered on a moment after his jerky nod, and then she turned her gaze on the other students behind him. Seeing them organizing to her satisfaction, she gave both opponents a sharp warning look promising dire punishment for any further misbehavior before turning to lead them all into the hall. This time, however, it was upon James's shoulder that she placed her hand to guide them into the hall._

_He followed as directed, fingering his wand again as he struggled to resist the need to turn around. His dark eyes burned a hole in James's back instead, but the other boy never noticed. James was straightening beneath his professor's hand as he led his classmates into the Great Hall. _

_He remained two paces behind them, the rest of his year-mates following and shivered slightly. He could feel the sharp weight of their hatred, the angry pressure of their eyes on his back, and knew as he filed into the Great Hall beside a blonde-haired boy that it would never be safe to stand with his back to them again. _

His heart raced forward at a gallop, his back bent nearly double at the strain. His breaths were quick and shallow as he pressed a wrinkled hand to his racing heart. He could feel his pulse fluttering with fear beneath his fingertips and struggled to slow it even as he gasped for breath. His heart rate subsided just enough for him to breathe almost normally, but he could still feel the quickened step of his pulse. His weary heart could no longer sustain this kind of abuse, and his acknowledgement of that fact only made the problem worse.

_I'm too old for this, _he thought with a grimace. Oddly, the thunderous beat of his heart seemed to hesitate, and then quickly calmed.

Albus banished the last vestiges of that unnamed fear as he straightened, shaking away the last shadows of confusion. "I am one hundred and fifty eight years old, Severus. I was Sorted more than a century ago," he asserted as he stepped forward again. "And as you have so often accused me, I am a Gryffindor. In all my years, there has never been a time when I have not said so with pride." Without contrast, the darkness could neither glower nor snipe, and so Albus finished the last of the twenty-five paces without further interruption.

He reached out with his right hand, startled to find nothing but air beneath his fingers. The doors were not there. He felt his heart jump and scowled. Frowning, he took a few more steps forward, arms outstretched. Finally, his fingers brushed against the rough wood of the door, the splintered remains of its once-elaborate etchings warming beneath his fingertips. Stepping forward, Albus reached out again, hands grasping blindly for the iron ring. Again, as with the gates, the iron flared red-hot at his touch. His hand caught on a splinter as he jerked it away, and he grimaced as he yanked it out. A little blood trickled out as he tossed the sliver away and reached for the door again, swearing. The blood on his hand slipped over the iron, and the door swung open.

Taking another deep breath, Albus walked on into the darkness.

He felt the tiling change under his feet just as the first light came on. A torch lit to his left, and then another, until the great hall was ringed in a spluttering yellow light. Thick and coarse, the torches burned dirty, casting clouds of dark, foul smoke that crashed and churned overhead, obscuring the ceiling and upper rafters. He missed the soft welcome of his white candles and the sparkle of the night sky above him.

In the dim lighting he could just make out the outlines of the four long tables, but there were no proud banners to proclaim the houses here. The entire hall was covered in a thick layer of dust and looked as though it had seen no use in the last century. He paused as he reached the center of the Hall, troubled. To his far left, the Gryffindor table had cracked clear down the middle, snapped under the strain of some unknown weight, and now lingered on only in memory, its two jagged ends raised in final capitulation. On the far right, the Slytherin table fared no better; it had been sundered into segments, sinking into itself before separating as it rotted away from the inside. To his left and his right, the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables had splintered unevenly all along their lengths and now showed only sharp, slender spikes that discouraged approach from all directions. It was eerily silent as Albus made his way down the center of the hall between the tables, accompanied only by the soft padding of his own steps. The dust billowed about his boots as he moved further into the room, his tentative footfall kicking up clouds that roiled about his robes like an early morning fog.

He was only a few feet from the dais when he saw the child. Seated rather precariously on the edge of the High Table, perfectly framed by the ornate chair behind him, a golden-haired cherub of a child sat patiently, looking down at him with clear blue eyes. Dressed in a light blue pajama set, the boy could not have been more than three years old, and his tiny bare feet dangled over the edge. Albus could not help but smile at the sight of the child, though his mind could not reconcile the boy's presence with the total desolation of the hall, nor the niggling sense of recognition it spurred at the back of his mind.

He approached cautiously, but the little boy simply continued to follow his approach with the saddest eyes Albus had ever seen. He stopped a few feet away, and bent down to meet the child's eyes with a soft smile. "Hello there, little man," Albus said gently, his tone not altering in the least as the boy nervously avoided his eyes. "Can you tell me your name?" There was a long, stilted silence between them, and then the child blinked, and Albus broke into a genuine smile as the boy looked up at him. Slowly, so as not to frighten the child, Albus offered the little boy his hand. "Where are your parents?" The beautiful little boy had just begun to reach a hand out to him when Severus's voice, crisp and cool, sliced through the hall, severing the tentative connection. Albus jumped, the little boy recoiled, and for the first time since Albus had seen him, cried out in fear.

"_**His name is Brian Nicholas McKinnon.**_" The cold of the familiar voice cut through both the child's cries and the rumble overhead. Despite the shock of recognition Albus searched the room frantically but could see no sign of Severus.

Turning back, he looked for the boy, but the child had scrambled away in the meantime and now had his back pressed against the Headmaster's chair as he cowered and cried out at the noise. Albus raced for the table but was once again interrupted by Severus's harshest tones.

"_**His parents are dead.**_"

The boy was screaming now, tears pouring down his face, and Albus ignored all else as he snatched the child up, holding him close as he tried to comfort the child.

"_**He was named for you,**__" _the voice continued a moment later, quieter this time. Albus continued to focus on the child in his arms, his actions instinctual as he soothed the child with soft touches and gentle words.

It was a few minutes before the child quieted in Albus's arms, and the surge of affection that swept him as he cradled the soft warmth of a drowsy child was as strong as ever.

But Severus's next words cut through the haze of even his parental impulses, though they were said no louder than a hoarse whisper.

"_**I killed him.**_"

Albus had just enough time to look up in shock before the bolt struck him in the heart.

_He turned the golden knob on the door quietly, though the crash of breaking wood came from all around him. Shoving the door open, slipping inside and slamming it behind him was the work of a moment; it was a full minute before he stopped shaking and lowered his wand. The room was dark and quiet; to his surprise, all noise had ceased the second the door clicked shut._

_He realized the purpose of the silencing charms almost instantly, even before a tiny whimper sounded in the dark. Heart racing, he listened, even as a dim light began to glow faintly. He did not need to see to know; the soft, even breathing of a child asleep was unmistakable._

_He blinked._

_The walls were a dull grey-yellow in the darkness, but he knew that daylight would turn them bright as Easter morning. The furniture was all light wood, the decoration cheerful, and the simple ornamentation tasteful._

_He blinked._

_There was a large crib on the right side of the room, an obvious antique, lovingly decked in white lace and blue ribbon. On the left hand side of the room stood a small four-poster bed with white gauze curtains, a frivolity clearly made for the princess of the house. A small bookshelf, a few trunks, a closet and a dresser, a few toys scattered across the floor…his eyes skittered across the room aimlessly._

_He looked over to the wall. Hanging by a shimmering thread was a small tapestry of a unicorn, hand-embroidered with the words: Eileen Marguerite McKinnon, born 4 May 1975, six pounds, eleven ounces, twenty inches. _

_He had found the nursery._

_He shifted closer to the bed, feeling unusually clumsy as he stepped between a stuffed pony and a doll. Through the gauze he could just make out a tangle of red-gold curls and a small hand resting on a large brown bear._

_Turning away from the sleeping girl, he found himself staring at a photograph on the opposite wall, and his jaw tightened with anger._

_From a wood frame on the wall, a beaming Albus Dumbledore stood holding a bundle of blankets that he assumed was the baby. His eyes followed the frame to another tapestry that provided the written confirmation: Brian Nicholas McKinnon, born 18 August 1979, seven pounds, two ounces, twenty-one inches._

_He found himself staring at the photograph and glowering at the scene, unable to tear his eyes away as the Headmaster gently rocked the baby, raising him up and smiling wide enough to break his miserable face. He sneered, his eyes narrowing in contempt. When Dumbledore finally turned to face him, still grinning like a hyena, he made sure to glare at the image. But when the old fool deliberately turned his back to him, seemingly unperturbed as he smiled down at the child in his arms and laughed at his antics, he snapped._

_His hand was shaking as he raised his wand._

_A single spell and a satisfying explosion obliterated the frame, the tapestry, and most of the western wall in a brilliant crash of fire and fury, and he let out a shuddering breath as the cool night air scattered even their ashes amongst the dying flames._

_He still trembling as he lowered his wand, blinking at the scorch marks on the wall, when he heard the shriek. _

_He started, spun, and cast instantly. He watched, then, as the brilliant red blaze seemed to slow in its arc as it flew towards the little girl standing there in her white nightgown at the foot of her bed. Their eyes met for a single moment, black to blue-gray, and he blinked._

_She flew away then, her little body arching backwards as the spell struck her, slamming her against the wall with a dull thud. And then it was dark in the room again, and all he could see through the gauze was a tangle of red-gold curls and a small hand from which an amaranth bloomed crimson against the snow-white sheets. _

_He blinked._

_The door creaked and he whirled to face it, wand snapping up despite his apparent daze. Light and sound poured into the room as Lucius stepped in, raising an eyebrow at his wand, and lit the room with a single spell._

_After his eyes had blinked away the brightness, his wand falling back to his side, gray eyes followed his form to the little red and white bed. _

_Roses. It had been embroidered with roses. _

_He shuddered._

_His eyes closed briefly as his exhaustion caught up with him and he wavered on his feet. Sleep—he needed sleep._

_There was a brief silence in the room. _

"_Well done, Severus," Lucius murmured finally. He dipped his head incrementally in acknowledgement, even as Lucius looked over his shoulder and smiled coldly. "But you haven't quite finished yet, have you?"_

_He turned around slowly. The chaos of the fight going on outside was quickly drowned out by the roaring in his ears as he took the four more steps over towards the crib, his black boots silent and soft on the baby blue carpet. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his hands throbbed in time as they hung limply at his sides. The wand in his hand prickled._

_Standing in the crib, his tiny hands clinging to the bars, was a little boy, blinking slowly as his sleep-clouded eyes registered his approach. For a long moment they simply stared at each other as his heart rate calmed and the boy's eyes cleared. Then the blond-haired little child looked up at him, his bright blue eyes meeting his dark ones without hesitation, and suddenly he felt the floor disappear beneath him. _

_Once again he was trapped by blue eyes, by clear crystal cerulean that saw everything, everything and nothing, but in this gaze there was no judgment, no condemnation, and no lies. This little boy just looked at him and saw him; him and only him._

_Transfixed, he holstered his wand and then slowly, very slowly, he reached out to the tiny child, palms upraised in an unknown offering. The roaring in his ears drowned out the distant crashes and the angry hiss from behind him. Blue eyes never wavered as he slipped forward and lifted the boy up easily. He brought the child to eye-level and held him at arms-length, observing him with a peculiar detachment that he could not quite name. From the hallway, the sounds of battle grew louder, and the child squirmed between his hands. _

_And then it came: a single cry of rage and agony, a call of such heartbreak and horror that they knew instantly that the Dark Lord's order had just been carried out. Marlene McKinnon was dead._

_His heart stopped._

_Black eyes met blue, and there was a single moment of perfect clarity between them. _

_The boy in his arms screamed._

_He shattered._

_He flung the child away, hurled away the blue-eyed accusation, the cerulean condemnation, and felt his fingers dig into soft cotton and softer skin just before he let go. Blonde curls smashed against the pastel yellow cream of the wall with a loud crack, splattering it scarlet in a grotesque perversion of modern art. The little body thumped against the wall and then dropped to the floor with a barely audible thump that resounded through his skull and rattled in his ears. _

_The child's cries ceased._

_Its body lay on the floor, limbs twisted and broken, skull crushed and bleeding. He watched as the blood continued to ooze from every orifice, bright red on baby blue, a stream of more scarlet than any baby, even a Gryffindor baby, could hold. He continued watching in morbid fascination, his mind automatically envisaging those little limbs stiffening in death. They would eventually freeze in that unnatural position; a fitting abomination to mark his horror. _

_He stared._

_A whisper of doubt snaked around his consciousness. He watched, unblinking, as his booted foot reached out to nudge the carcass, recoiling again at the soft give of it. He continued to watch as the movement tore the skin further, revealing the shattered pieces of the child's cranium in a surge of blood._

_He stared._

_Even Lucius was silent for a moment._

_When he finally turned to face him, the most insensate section of his mind noted that he had finally managed to shock—perhaps even frighten—Lucius Malfoy._

_He stood there, waiting._

_Lucius snapped to attention a few moments later, and he watched as his friend's satisfied smirk turned into a wolfish grin. "Well done indeed, Severus. Forgive me for doubting you, old friend," Lucius said smoothly, pausing for a moment to glance at the kaleidoscope of colors that he had made in a baby's blood on the cream canvas of the wall. "I should have remembered your hate of Gryffindors." Lucius looked over at him speculatively. "Marlene McKinnon was James Potter's second cousin. I heard that they were close."_

_He felt a quick, fierce rush of revenge, sweet on his soul, and could not hide the instinctive flare of satisfaction in his eyes. But his reaction seemed to have erased the last of Lucius's doubts. "I will inform the Dark Lord that the last of the McKinnons are dead," Lucius said almost eagerly, giddy on blood in a way he had never seen the man on alcohol. "Come."_

"_I am not finished here yet," he said forcefully._

_Lucius's eyes widened. This time, when he smiled, it was a real, wide, and even warm smile—perhaps the first that he had ever seen from him. "I'll let you finish up here, then. The Dark Lord will no doubt be very pleased with this presentation." Lucius looked over at him, a fanatical light in his gray eyes. "Even the Gryffindors will no longer dare to stand against us after this display," Lucius said with a smile of the dangerous predator. And with a final admiring glance at his bloody art, Lucius left him alone._

_Lucius left him alone in a nursery he'd painted in its children's blood, left him basking in his praise, screaming in horror at his joy and shaking with self-revulsion. He had killed the youngest of the McKinnons, a pretty little girl with blue-grey eyes and red-gold hair and a beautiful, blue-eyed baby boy whose only crime was to have been born into a great and noble family._

_He had just enough time to whisper the incantation and watch as the entire room was consumed in roaring conflagration, enough time to brush against the searing flames wistfully, time enough to apparate away before he collapsed, bloody and bleeding, vomiting, choking, crying, and shuddering uncontrollably on the dank forest floor._

Albus found himself once again alone in the Great Hall, cradling only empty air in his arms. He could feel the tears running down his face and allowed himself to shed a few more for the tiny baby boy he remembered. He had not seen the child much after his first birthday, exercising his spoiling rights as an honorary grandfather through Minerva or by owl instead; again, he had foolishly hoped that staying away from the child would somehow keep him safer.

_Dear Merlin. _He had known, of course, that Severus had been involved in the McKinnon attack. He had even known that killing one of the McKinnon children had been one of his primary reasons for agreeing to return to Hogwarts. Eight children had died in the raid that had nearly eliminated the McKinnon clan entirely, but Albus had never been able to bring himself to ask, nor had Severus had ever told him. It was only one of their many unspoken accords, but he had never before known exactly how much weight it carried.

Albus wondered if Severus had ever investigated his exact relationship to the McKinnons after learning of his marriage to Minerva. Severus had likely assumed that Minerva was related to the McKinnons in some way—most of the pureblood wizarding families were at least distantly related, of course, and the Scottish clans more so than the others—but Albus was uncertain if Severus had known that Brian McKinnon had not only been one of his namesakes, but his great-nephew as well. Mulling over the possibility, Albus admitted that it was more than likely. Observant, intelligent and meticulous as he was, Severus missed little; acquiring such a trivial fact would only be a matter of time.

_It would also_, Albus thought sadly, _explain why Minerva and I are the only two people at Hogwarts to have ever heard a genuine apology from the mouth of Severus Snape_.

They had taught a startling number of their relations over the years, but Marlene had perhaps been Minerva's favorite. Of all of Minerva's siblings, Aileen had been closest to her in both age and temperament, and Marlene had been her daughter in so many ways that Minerva was often hard pressed to keep from laughing while disciplining her strong-willed niece—and Marlene, delightful little scamp that she was, had known it. They had remained close even after her graduation and subsequent marriage to Keith McKinnon, but Minerva had still been surprised and deeply touched when Marlene had presented the tiny baby boy to his great-aunt as Brian Nicholas for his great-uncle, because he was not quite the girl they had been expecting. Five minutes later, Albus had found himself with his tiny namesake safely ensconced in his arms, protecting him from the hugging, crying, and beaming joy of his wife and her niece. He had been thoroughly absorbed in drowsy blue eyes that watched him with an equally endless fascination as he told the tiny child about all the wonderful things he would show him when he came to Hogwarts.

But that had never happened.

Keith, who had managed the French division of Gringott's, had brought his family back to England only once during the war—for his parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. They had been killed two days later, just three days before Brian's third birthday.

_Brian._

He suddenly felt as though he had been bent, yanked out of place and habit and squeezed into some unnatural reflection of himself, like some of the young saplings that Hagrid had sometimes overwhelmed in his enthusiasm before Pomona had found another assistant.

There was the slightest push, a small nudge, and then the building blocks of his mental walls came crashing down, and he snapped.

Severus Snape had killed his great-niece Eileen, the tiny baby with her father's red-gold curls and her mother's eyes, the laughing four-year-old who had used him as a hobby horse for hours, the six-year-old girl who had loved reading to Minerva almost as much as Minerva had loved reading to her.

…_the casket was white, pure white, and so terribly small that he could not bear to look at it for long, so quiet and tiny, dwarfed by the two larger black ones that guarded her even in death; and it was wrong, so very wrong, that the vibrancy of red-gold and blue-green, of mischief and merriment, be diminished to this pale imitation; and then he could only watch through watery eyes, heart in his throat, as Minerva withdrew a small, well-loved children's book from her pocket and gently placed it beside the dozens of roses scattered around, her shaking fingertips lingering over the soft petals for only a moment before her breath caught and she turned away to bury her face in his chest, sobbing… _

His eyes were closed as he sank to the floor of the dais, unmindful of the dust. His body shook with sheer emotion and his chest heaved with the effort that it took to breathe normally.

_Oh, God!_

He had killed her without a second thought, on instinct alone, and it was of little comfort to know that she had not suffered. Albus tried to breathe deeply, but could not escape the memory of Eileen's elfin little face alight with glee as he produced another sweet from his pocket, the two of them giggling at Marlene's dark warning that he had better keep those sweets away from the baby.

_The baby._

_Brian._

Severus Snape had killed his great-nephew, his namesake, the blue-eyed baby boy who had captured his heart at first sight, the tiny child whose very name had never failed to incite a rush of the deepest affection and gratitude. He recalled then, with a perfect, pained clarity, exactly how it had felt when Brian had finally fallen asleep in his arms; swaying gently with this soft warmth against his chest, a perfect, precious weight whose drowsy contentment echoed all the way down to his soul.

Albus tried and failed to suppress the growing firestorm of emotion screaming through every corner of his mind.

Severus Snape had killed his great-nephew, his namesake, his precious baby boy.

Severus Snape had murdered Brian McKinnon.

And he'd done it with his bare hands.

_Oh, God!_

"Severus..."

It was a whisper, a plea, a single exhalation, no louder than a baby's breath against his cheek.

"Severus!"

This was a call, a cry, a summons that was for the first time summarily ignored.

His blood raced through his veins, boiling beneath his skin, simmering with his rage.

"SEVERUS!" he shouted, lunging to his feet with the unsteady strength of an unspeakable anger. "WHY, SEVERUS?"

The Hall vibrated with his screams.

"They were innocent!"

"They were _children_!"

…_and I loved them._

"_I loved them_," Albus whispered, and stumbled back against the table.

_...his wrinkled fingers traced the engraved words lightly, cautiously, ghosting over the letters as though a firmer touch might shatter the stone beneath, and his heart with it…_

…Eileen Marguerite McKinnon, 4 May 1979 – 15 August 1981…

…Brian Nicholas McKinnon, 18 August 1979 – 15 August 1981…

…God gives us love. Something to love He lends to us…

_Eileen._

_Brian._

_Connor._

His eyes closed in an expression of private anguish.

_Why must it always be the children?_

As always, his question went unanswered. Over the years he had asked it in tears, in sorrow, in anger, in agony, and later, in bitterness. Mourning, begging, or screaming, it was his accusation, his condemnation, and his sentence.

_Why must it always be _my _children?_

Only the rasping of his own breath answered him, and he knew then that it was all the answer he would ever hear.

He lasted three full breaths.

"_SEVERUS!_"

There was a resounding crash, and Albus ducked as a blast of light shot out from the ceiling to strike every wall of the room just above his head, ringing the room in lightning. Then the blaze dimmed, leaving only a harsh, crackling illumination.

The dark clouds above him crashed as they coagulated into a single swirling vortex. Albus watched as a small tornado began to form in the Great Hall. The tail, however, descended not in a single column but in a dozen streams of smoke that split and separated into columns beside the tables before coalescing into familiar forms and faces. The figures were silent and still, but appeared completely solid. All were dressed in the familiar black school robes of Hogwarts students, though most were far older, and each held a heavy goblet in one hand. Albus shuddered as he recognized each and every face, for once regretting that every corner of the Hall could be seen from the Headmaster's seat at the High Table.

They formed from left to right; Slytherin, farthest from the door, was first. From the front row, Dorcas Meadows raised a golden goblet to him, her black eyes disdainful. Her fifteen-year-old son Damien mirrored his mother's gesture, and Albus found himself unable to meet their eyes. When he turned away from her son, burned by the bitter disillusionment in his young face, Dorcas shattered the silence of the hall. Her voice, magnificent and mellifluous in song, wielded the spoken word like a weapon. Pointed and sharp, much like the woman herself, her smooth accusations sliced through the unsettled waters of his mind with deadly accuracy.

"You never did know what to do with Slytherin, did you, Dumbledore? We simply didn't fit into your perfect picture of Hogwarts. Merlin forbid that a single Slytherin support you: what would you do with him?"

"You can never trust a Slytherin," she said in a near-perfect imitation of James Potter.

"Cheats and liars, the lot of them," she added in Sirius Black's voice.

The pattern was so familiar, so painful, and so condemning that Albus could only try to swallow; he could not speak.

"Ah, yes, _Sirius Black_," she drawled, returning to her own velvet voice. "The one boy you thought you could save, your perfect opportunity: a Slytherin son Sorted into Gryffindor. He was your great success, an heir of the House of Black stolen away and twisted into a Potter. The _great _alchemistchanging silver to gold." Albus' eyes flickered away, unable to stand both the sound and the sight of the sneer on her face.

"But you _loved _him, didn't you, old man? It was all just _fine_ because you _loved_ him!" Dorcas's accusation cracked like a whip and her dark eyes burned into his. "You saw only what you wanted to, that Black was bright and brave and true to his friends, and your pride in him for that was matched only by your pleasure in his little mischievous streak. And you ignored all the rest.

"They were your Marauders, Albus, and everyone knew it. '_Boys will be boys,' _you said, and nothing could change your mind. The other professors all gave up eventually; only Minerva could and would continue to challenge you. But it was only Minerva, and it was _always_ Minerva, and so you told her for the hundredth time to lighten up a little—it was just a bit of harmless fun—and you chuckled while she chased after them."

"She loved them all a little," Dorcas continued, her voice softening at the mention of her friend. "She loved those boys just as much as you did, if differently, and she still saw enough to worry about her bright young quidditch champions. It took you six years to see it, six years and the failed murder of another child."

She met his eyes squarely. "Sirius Black was sixteen, thoughtless, and cruel." Albus, shrinking with every spoken word, cringed. "He was thoughtless and cruel, and he jeopardized the lives of three students in as many hours. Your little lion tried to kill another student, and total catastrophe was averted only by the reckless heroism of James Potter and the silence of Severus Snape."

She gave him a brief moment to consider his guilt, and then continued. "Fate demanded a life that night and gave you a choice. You chose to save Sirius Black, your tainted Gryffindor, your tarnished golden boy, your would-be murderer—and you willingly sacrificed Severus Snape, just another _Slytherin_, a small silver price to save your black lion. You did what Sirius Black could not. You drove Severus Snape from Hogwarts."

A little smile played at the corners of her mouth as she coolly observed the effect of her words. "A beautiful and terrible thing, the truth. I often wondered if it existed at all: _the_ truth or simply _your_ truth, Albus."

Silence sounded in the Great Hall.

Albus's heartbeat thundered loud and slow in his head.

"It wasn't just Snape, you know," another voice cut in awkwardly, and Albus turned in shock to see Damien Meadows step forward to stand beside his mother. Taller by a head than his deceptively small mother, Damien's teenaged body was still in its gangly stage, but his dark eyes were just as alert—and angry—as his mother's. "Snape wasn't the only one who left because you hate Slytherin. He never told anybody what happened, but everyone knew that Black must've done something to him, and that you let him off. It must've been bad, too, because Snape…he was angry before, but this time…this time was different." The sixteen-year-old shifted uncomfortably at the memory. "Potter didn't say anything, either, but he _looked _guilty…and he was fighting with Black. It was obvious what had happened. Nobody needed the details. I was only a third year then, and I knew. Everyone did."

He looked back at Albus, frowning. "Casse—Cassandra Varen—she was in the year above me. She told me that she didn't know who to believe. Max—Maxentius Gard—he said that you'd never liked any of us, that you always had and always would support the Gryffindors. Black nearly hexed me for running into him second year before Potter reminded him that my mum was in the Order. Professor McGonagall nearly caught him at it, but…" Damien shrugged. "It wouldn't have mattered, anyway," he muttered. Albus's gaze sharpened.

"Max was right," Damien snapped back, meeting the Headmaster's eyes with an equal anger. "He was _right_. When the war finally broke out, you didn't help us out at all. We were Slytherins and we were all _evil, _just because Riddle had been, and you wouldn't take us in. You hid the Gryffindors and _their _families, but not ours, not _mine_. My dad was a Ravenclaw and my mum was in your precious Order, but we were Slytherin. Your Gryffindors didn't trust me, and you wouldn't take me in."

"You wouldn't take me in, and Mum wouldn't go without me, and she _died _for it. No!" he shouted, shaking off his mother's consoling hand. "They found us and they killed us; killed us because we were Slytherins but we were dumb enough to choose _you. _And we _died _for it, for choosing you, because you wouldn't protect us," Damien raged at him. "They killed us all, me and Eric Larson, and Mathias Willowby, and Savin Reirs and Elisandre Cauler." The boy broke off at the girl's name. "Lissa—" Silent as smoke, the girl appeared beside him, honey-colored hair and hazel eyes, pretty and promising at fifteen.

"I know you tried, Professor," she said softly. "I know you tried to find someone to take me in, to keep the Slytherin half-blood safe from her pure-blooded uncle and his 'friends'."

"But I failed," Albus whispered. "You were taken three days after going home."

"Yes," Elisandre replied simply. "That's true. But there are only so many unplottable houses in Britain, and you tried. The Richards told you later that they were willing to take me, so you did succeed eventually."

"It was too late."

"It was too late for me," she corrected him, keeping her hand on Damien's arm. "But they took in Maya after the war, and she and her career persuaded other families to take in more war orphans."

"Maya Eversole was a Hufflepuff, Elisandre," Dorcas said.

"With Slytherin parents," the girl retorted.

Dorcas shook her head. "_She _was a Hufflepuff, though, not that it mattered to many." She looked over at Albus. "There were so many Slytherin Death Eaters…so many that _Slytherin_ and _Death Eater_ became synonymous for your Gryffindors. And you did nothing to stop their prejudice," she said accusingly, shaking her head.

"Why did it have to cost so many lives—mine, my son's, your _Gryffindors_—before you learned? There no children of Slytherin denouncing pure-blood philosophy because _there weren't any children left _to do so. They were killed, Dumbledore, each and every family, because you wouldn't or you 'couldn't'—you didn't protect them. They were killed, one by one, until fear silenced all the rest."

Those Slytherin children stared back at him now, silent, raising copper and gold goblets to him in apprehensive awe. Dorcas moved to stand behind them, raising her chin proudly as she looked down at Albus. Her icy disdain burned.

"Slytherin children weren't good enough for you to save, except for the one you could use. Of all of Slytherin House, you 'saved' only one, a traitor and a spy, a Slytherin you had tortured, interrogated, and tried in court. You snatched up your tool, and used him until he was utterly spent. Of all of Slytherin, it was Snape, the coward, the weak one, the one you could manipulate, that you snatched from the pan to throw into the fire yourself."

Albus opened his mouth to protest, but Dorcas's black eyes forbade him from speaking. She had heard enough of his arguments in life, and was willing to hear no more. He sighed. Young Elisandre offered him a slight, sympathetic smile, but Damien's eyes were hard as he warned Albus away from his mother and girlfriend. Swallowing, Albus directed his eyes further down the table.

Young Regulus Black's expression was a mixture of anger and admiration that made him shift uneasily. Fortunately, however, those that followed were much easier to handle. He met the hateful eyes of Bellatrix, Rabastan and Rodolphous Lestrange with equanimity, passed by those of Crabbe and Goyle, fathers and sons, with only a passing regret, and glared at the form of Antonin Dolohov. Lucius Malfoy's gray eyes were dry ice, but they glittered with some strange emotion that Albus found oddly disquieting, and he found himself moving onto Jugson, Macnair, and Morvin quickly. As one, the Death Eaters raised silver goblets to him in a mocking salute.

Figures began forming on the Ravenclaw table almost immediately, faster than he could follow them all. Allen McKinnon. Xanthus Castall. Melina Kingston. Richard Meadows. Angela Cartwright. Gareth Stirling. Caleb Eristaeus. Annabeth Riordan.

Llewyn MacAirt stepped forward out of the crowd, grey-eyed and grey-haired at ninety, but still as fierce as ever. He nodded once at Dorcas before turning to face Albus. "At least you thought about the Slytherins. We Ravenclaws weren't much use to you, were we, Dumbledore? The braver ones joined your Order outright and got killed for their trouble. The rest of us who wanted, who needed to hear more never did. You never took us into your confidence, never shared your secrets with the rest of us regular folk out fighting your war. Half of us were researchers; most of little use in the field, and no use at all when you don't tell us what we're looking for. I was only involved because Minerva insisted, and even then I was little more than an extra librarian for her."

A young man in his mid-twenties stepped forward to Llewyn's right as his classmates formed around them. "We're Ravenclaws, Professor. We work better with more information. It's just the way we are. We knew you were working for something, and probably working against _him, _but we didn't know any more than that, and it wasn't enough for most of us. You invited me into the Order, but it was Gideon who persuaded me to join; not because he was my brother, but because he told me everything you hadn't—what you were working for, how you were doing it, and why you needed me." Fabian Prewett, dark of hair and eye, had mirrored his Gryffindor brother in appearance and matched him in every other way. "You had me recruiting from my own House, but by the time you finally allowed me to tell those few recruits what they needed to know, the first war was nearly over. Ravenclaw would have joined you, Professor, if you'd only allowed us to know why you were fighting."

Falling in behind Fabian were three of those late recruits: Fisher Byrne, Kris Andersen, and Sabine Rathmann. Fisher had gone down fighting during the first war, just three weeks after joining the Order; Kris and Sabine had survived the first war only to fall in the second. All three met his gaze evenly, and Albus accepted each acknowledgement in turn before glancing at the others. Twelve-year-old Katherine Bones was the last to appear, and as she raised her goblet to him, the rest of the Ravenclaw table followed in a strangely solemn salute.

The smoke was swirling faster now, flakes of gray ash falling like snow as figures formed around the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables. Keith and Marlene McKinnon stood facing each other from across their respective tables, looking exactly as they had the last time he had seen them alive. As though sensing his inspection, they both turned to face him, raising identical golden goblets to him even as their eyes condemned him. They said nothing as he moved on, trembling under the weight of their silent accusation.

Avoiding their eyes, Albus glanced past them with a grimace, only to find himself facing a furious Edgar Bones, his youngest daughter Sarah beside him. Edgar drew Sarah back with one hand, even as his other raised his goblet to Albus. Little six-year-old Sarah did the same, brandy-brown eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him from over the rim of her little copper cup.

Edgar's dark eyes were wild as they met his own. "We were slaughtered like pigs, Dumbledore. Led like lambs to the slaughter and executed just as efficiently. They killed me last, you know—they made me watch." The man let out a hysterical sob. "And I watched. I watched as our daughters screamed as their mother was tortured and killed, and I begged them—yes, begged them, on my knees, as an animal!—to kill my own children. My own children, Dumbledore!" Edgar shrieked, his hand tightening on the phantom image of his youngest child, never noticing her slight wince. "When they finally killed me, I felt nothing. There was nothing left of me. I died in darkness."

Albus swallowed hard and stared at the man blankly. Edgar Bones had been one of the Ministry's top Charms researchers, a solid, even-tempered family man. He summoned a sad little smile for Sarah and moved on.

From the Gryffindor table, Frank and Alice Longbottom raised their glasses to him, the regret in the Aurors' eyes unmistakable. As always, Albus winced at the sight of them. Back in the real world, their bodies still breathed, but they joined the parade of the dead here anyway. They said nothing to Albus, as mute here as they were there.

"You would have been very proud of Neville," Albus told them quietly and turned away.

Caradoc Dearborn stood just beyond them, the soft, warm, familiar smile on his face in some way more painful than all the previous accusation.

"Hello, Uncle Albus," he said cheerfully.

Albus stared at the boy incredulously.

Caradoc grinned, and Albus's heart clenched. Just as frighteningly discerning as his aunt, Caradoc sobered instantly. His serious green eyes met Albus's squarely. "It wasn't your fault," he said earnestly.

Albus flinched violently. Caradoc's death had been his fault, directly and entirely his fault. He had sent the boy to look into one of their intelligence leads, a potential contact that they had known very little about. He had originally intended to go himself, but something had come up at the Ministry and Caradoc had volunteered to go instead. It should have been an easy mission. Instead, Caradoc had vanished as if he'd never been, leaving not so much as a button to find. "It wasn't your fault," he heard his nephew say again, softly, but he had already turned away.

The Hufflepuff table offered no relief. Although Benjy Fenwick sent him a small smile as he raised his goblet, all Albus could see was the face of the gargoyle, screaming in agony. Horrified, he jerked his eyes away, recognition flashing at every turn as his gaze was drawn down the hall. Gideon Prewett. Helena Yeats. Angus MacFarlan. Percy Weasley. Julia Reisling. Raynor Strongarm. Sirius Black. Leon Callieux. Elise Marks. Tearing his gaze from betrayed face of twelve-year-old Marianne McKinnon, Albus found himself faced with the last pair of Gryffindors.

It was too much, too many. As Lily and James Potter raised their goblets to him, Albus began to shake. Lily was smiling at him; James nodded to him as he slid an arm around her waist, his regard warm. They stared at each other for a minute, a leader of the Light and his two greatest soldiers, an old professor and his two grown students.

"Harry is happy, then?" Lily asked after a moment.

"Very," Albus replied, choked.

Her answering smile at his response was blinding.

James smiled. "That's all we could ever ask for."

There was an easy, agonizing silence in the hall for a moment.

"It's been nearly twenty years and you still don't know how you failed us," Marlene said suddenly, shaking her head at him fondly as she drew his attention back to the front of the Gryffindor table. She reached out a hand, and Eileen's smaller one materialized, the rest of the child following, to take it. Little Eileen raised a small copper cup to him, but her marvelous green-gray eyes were focused on another, smaller figure.

Baby Brian Nicholas, not quite three years old, toddled forward towards Albus on unsteady feet. The tiny copper cup clenched between his hands swung from side to side with his every tottering step. A faint smile crossed Albus's lips at the sight. Brian's tiny feet stirred up the gathered dust on the floor as he continued between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, his laborious progress watched intently by his family. Five feet from the High table, Brian stumbled. Keith stepped forward to secure his son immediately.

Little Brian safe in his arms, Keith looked up at Albus, his dark eyes mildly reproachful. "You should have been here to see this, Albus." He looked down at his son.

Baby Brian stepped forward again, pushed gently forward by his father, and toddled forward to place a clear crystal glass at the floor before his feet. The child stepped back, his blue eyes old, and raised his own double-handed copper cup to toast his Headmaster and namesake.

The entire Hall was on its feet, a sea of silver and gold goblets and copper cups raised to him, when a single spell was heard, and time seemed to freeze for a moment.

"_**Avada Kedavra!**_"

A brilliant green light flashed through, momentarily illuminating everything and everyone in an eerie emerald glow.

Albus knew it and waited for death to come.

It did.

Half the figures in the room fell instantly, and the dull cracks and thuds that filled the hall as bodies and bones broke against the ground were deafening to his ears.

There was not a single moment of reverent silence, and Albus leapt back in shock as the quiet was suddenly shattered with screams, his cry of pain mingling with those already echoing through the hall. But even the harsh rigidity of the table behind him and the throbbing in his lower back could not keep him grounded now. His ears rang with the suffering of his students and he wavered, trembling, overwhelmed by the agonized shrieks, desperate pleas and death cries that electrified the air. He watched in fascinated horror as some of the figures dropped in a sharp crack of green light. Others collapsed screaming in agony as their bodies contorted beneath _Cruciatus_ before finally breaking, their beaten and bloody forms still twisted even in death. One by one the sea of silver and gold goblets clattered to the floor, and Albus could hear the shatter of glass, the boom of breaking wood, and the twisted screech of metal with every clang.

The moment the last goblet crashed against the stone, a white mist began to rise from beneath the floor to reveal the shining silhouettes of other figures. Albus cried out for the first time now as Harry, Molly, Arthur, Amelia, Neville, Minerva, and the rest of the surviving family members appeared, weeping over their lost loved ones. Translucent despite the white halo surrounding him, a one-year-old Harry screamed over the broken bodies of his parents, while an older, darker Harry met and matched Albus's gaze with the same angry condemnation he had shown in his fifth year. Amelia was crying openly as she knelt beside the bloodied corpses of her brother and his entire family. Baby Neville was shrieking as loudly as his parents; while observing the scene, an eleven-year-old Neville looked up at him only once, jaw tight with anger and pain, his brown eyes filled with the frustration and lost hope of another boy who had never known his parents. Farther down the hall, Molly had collapsed over her son's body, screaming incoherently, and continued throwing off her husband's arms despite the matching tears streaming down his face. Standing slightly away from the others, Minerva simply held herself and cried, muffling her sobs with her hands as she stared blankly into space, denied even the comfort of mourning her nephew's body.

He could not cry.

He could not move.

He could not _breathe_.

He had stood alone at the High Table and watched blankly as his students died before his eyes.

He had stood alone at the High Table as they were replaced by still more of his students whose cries of grief and rage cut just as deeply.

He stood alone before the Headmaster's chair now as the echoes of their agony reverberated through the hall, chased in chorus by that of their survivors and echoed by the response evoked from his own chest.

Even in the chaos, however, his ears found and focused on her voice, and though he closed his eyes to the sight of her, he could not shut out the memory of her face, and cringed.

"…can't be, that's impossible…I won't believe it, Albus, I _won't…_" There was a long pause and Albus could almost hear himself, solemn and sorrowful but definitively certain as he forced her to see the truth.

"_No!_" she screamed at him, and he flinched again. "_No!_ This is Caradoc you're talking about, Albus, not just one of your former students or…or…_Caradoc!_" She broke off and dissolved into tears, and he swallowed against the lump in his throat.

"He's a _good_ boy," she cried finally, as though pleading with him to acquit the child. His frown deepened as he winced. "I…He…" Her breath was short as she tried to find the words that would somehow save her nephew.

The memory of her then was so strong that he could see her before him, and straightened his shoulders even as he felt himself shrink.

Minerva looked up at him, and the absolute trust in her green-eyed gaze shook him. She looked up at him, and again he was struck by the sheen of tears in her eyes, emerald shimmering starlight, and he suddenly wanted to speak, to say something, to say anything that stop what came next. He was too late, too right, too honest, too weak to do anything else but watch as her eyes darkened, shuttered and fell as her last, desperate hope distorted into despair and she sank into the couch behind her, her body mirroring her mind as her shoulders slumped and she seemed to shrink into herself before burying her face in her hands.

When she finally raised her hands enough to peer out at him, her face flushed and her eyes red, she asked him only one question.

"_Why?_"

His voice would not answer him, and when she asked him again, she shouted.

"_Why, _Albus, for Merlin's sake! _Why?_"

At the aching echo of her words, he opened his eyes only to find her standing just a few feet away, her face stricken as she asked him again the one question he could never answer.

"_Why?_"

Her voice was no more than a whisper on the wind, a single thread of soft sound that strangled him, but it appeared to resound through the hall just as loudly as it did in his heart, for the others looked up then, tear-stained and red-rimmed eyes meeting his own tortured gaze, and he had no answer for them. And so one by one, they evaporated, and the slumped forms of their dead dissolved again into mist and shadow.

Minerva lingered a moment longer, her eyes meeting his in a simple, sad farewell before she too vanished and left him.

Standing alone before the Headmaster's chair, Albus stumbled in the sudden silence.

The gold and silver goblets scattered haphazardly across the floor began to rise, righting themselves before rising and returning to their places, settling just above the shattered remains of the long tables with a quiet rattling. The glasses were set again for dinner, evenly spaced along the tables, suspended in the air above the shattered remnants of the once-great hall.

He did not know when it began; perhaps the cacophony of cries and his own confusion had prevented him from noticing it before, but in this new aching quiet, he began to hear bubbling. It was a faint, steady sound a first, but seemed to grow exponentially louder, like a cauldron seething, boiling over.

Steam began to rise from the goblets, ever-thickening white wisps that spiraled up into the darkness. Bubbles appeared briefly and then suddenly silver and gold were scorned by scarlet as the goblets spewed forth boiling blood. Red ran over rims, clinging and covering until all other colors were swallowed up. Poured forth by liberal hand, the incarnadine liquor splashed down onto the stones to stain them in sin.

Albus stared in shock.

The hall was now filled with three hundred and seventeen silver and gold fonts of blood.

Carmine crawled across the floors, snaking towards other strands before spreading across the floor. Albus stared as the stones below the dais were covered in a simmering scarlet that showed no sign of slowing its advance. Eyes widening, he backed away slowly, sliding around the table. Silly held no meaning as he used the Headmaster's chair to scramble onto the High Table, recoiling at the mere thought of touching that…that…

Halfway onto the table he heard the characteristic _pop _of Apparition, somewhat like the dull pop upon opening a beer bottle, and looked up in surprise. The sight before him was surprisingly unsettling. A man in a navy blue suit stood stiffly in the center of the hall and was observing Albus evenly, despite the clear incongruities between them. Caught with one foot on the seat of the chair and one on the High Table, Albus finished his ascent with as much dignity as he could manage and then looked out at the man again. There was some unusual quality about this newcomer that escaped him; it was rare that he did not recall one of his students, and so he scrutinized the stranger more closely. The man's graying hair was neatly combed back, his brown shoes recently polished, and his hazel eyes were alert and intelligent as he met Albus's gaze. It struck him instantly, the answer obvious and impossible. A Muggle man was standing in the center of Hogwarts' Great Hall.

Another dull pop sounded in the hall, and this time a blonde-haired young woman in a cornflower blue sundress appeared beside the man. The curiosity in her gray eyes met and matched his just as another woman appeared with a pop. After her came a middle-aged man in a flannel shirt and jeans, a little girl in a lime pajama suit, an elderly man in a tweed jacket, and a red-haired young man in a horrid orange sweatshirt that reminded him of the Weasley boys. The hall began to fill again as more and more Muggles continued to appear, the pops of apparition sounding so quickly that they sounded a heavy rain.

They did not appear to notice the bubbling blood lapping about their ankles, nor the goblets suspended in midair amongst them. They simply stared at Albus, their bodies shielding the goblets from sight as more and more of them packed into the hall, filling the room filled to capacity and then exceeding it. Despite the increasing press, however, they did not step onto the dais, but crowded together like cattle throughout the rest of the hall as more and more people materialized. It was a teeming mass of humanity, and Albus stared out amongst them in shock.

These new figures were faceless.

As far back as he could see, they stood silently, men and women of all shapes and sizes and colors, but it was only smooth skin, pale or tanned or dark, that stretched across faces and foreheads.

The unnaturalness of it made his skin crawl. He could not stop the shiver that shook him, nor the second upon hearing the answering rumble from the back of the hall. When he finally saw what was happening, he could not stop shaking at all. The faceless human forms were morphing, melting, merging into the growing ocean of blood. From the back arose a ten-foot wave that began to move forward, sweeping along the floor and sucking up the spilled scarlet with a swooshing sound. It was an incarnadine tsunami that finally approached the High Table, a solid wall of smoking heat. It hesitated just before the dais, this boiling mass of blood, and he looked up at it with a frightful resignation.

And then the wave came crashing down, and Albus screamed as the scarlet scorched his skin. He was being boiled alive, drowning in a river of blood, arms and legs thrashing and flailing in a viscous liquid that thrummed and pulsed as though it still carried the life force of those it had been taken from. He could feel _his_ blood boiling in his veins, shrieking in agony, every nerve ending on fire, until all he wanted was to join the others, to let his blood mix and mingle and know nothing more than dark heat and oblivion.

Albus stopped fighting, and sank.

* * *

A/N: The epitaph for the McKinnon children is from Tennyson (I found it online). This particular fic has made for some _very _morbid keyword searches. 

I hope that you enjoyed it, such as it is, and wish to thank my beta-buddy, fallenwitch, and my best friend, Addy, for all their assistance in this and other things.

I'd very much appreciate feedback, so please review the nastily, unbelievably long chapter! I hope it wasn't too confusing. A.


End file.
